Writing details and Three Pines

As a writer, I often stop reading to admire a phrase, the choice of a word, the plotting.

I am the moment I'm working my way through Louise Penny's series set in Three Pines. For those who don't know the series it is set in a hidden village near the Canadian-Vermont border peopled by characters such as Myrna, Ruth, Jean-Guy, Reine-Marie. Even Rosa the duck seem as real to me as Pierre-Bernard, Sylvie, Lydia and other people I see in my real village of Argelès-sur-mer.

As a writer, I know the importance of grounding whatever I'm writing to help the read visualize the scene. 

Penny did something I considered brilliant. The story had a number of flashbacks set in winter. The other part was the trial in summer. She never mentioned when and where, but made sure winter cold and summer heat were obvious of the location and time.

My reader when I was going for a doctorate at the University of Manchester, which I never finished, hated it when I mentioned food. It was my way of showing an the values of an almost vegetarian family. I dropped out of the program, but the novel Family Value was published to good reviews despite the lentils mentioned.

I try not to read the series when hungry. Penny's characters cook and eat well: baguettes are fresh from the oven, casseroles almost send their perfume off the page, tea is served in bowls, French style, blueberries melt in my imaginary mouth, etc. 

Of course this is all background to the mystery itself which is a good read in itself.