Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Laura Madeleine

After a childhood spent acting professionally and training at a theatre school, Laura Madeleine changed her mind and went to study English Literature at Newnham College, Cambridge. The author of The Confectioner's Tale, she now writes fiction, as well as recipes, and was formerly the resident cake baker for Domestic Sluttery. She lives in Bristol, but can often be found visiting her family in Devon, eating cheese, and getting up to mischief with her sister, fantasy author Lucy Hounsom.

Madeleine's latest book to reach the US is Where the Wild Cherries Grow: A Novel of the South of France.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:
I’m in full research mode for my next novel right now, so all of my reading is on a theme. I’ve just finished two books by Mohamed Choukri, a Moroccan writer who taught himself how to read and write in his twenties after a childhood of poverty, abuse and crime. His For Bread Alone was a startlingly honest and fascinating account of growing up on-and-off the streets in Tangier and Tetouan. His In Tangier – a series of diary-like entries written during the late sixties – provides a few wonderful vignettes of his meetings with fellow writers like Jean Genet and Tennessee Williams. I’ve now moved on the Josh Shoemake’s Tangier: A Literary Guide for Travellers, which is proving an entertaining read. (Can you guess where my next book is set, yet?) Other than that, I’m queuing up Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca after watching the brilliant Hitchcock film version and realising – to my shame – that I’ve never actually read it.
Visit Laura Madeleine's website.

The Page 69 Test: Where the Wild Cherries Grow.

--Marshal Zeringue