The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton

As I've mentioned all too often :), all 2011 I've been rather behind with reviewing the books I've read this year.  All in all it has never been my policy to review all the books I read. Firstly some of the books I read are not available in English and secondly sometimes I just don't feel I have enough to say about the book or simply don't feel like writing a review, and that's fine. :) When I started this blog back in 2009 I stated that I will only talk about books I like. I must admit I have not quite lived up to that, but maybe that was a bit unrealistic to say in the first place, because, even though I have never had any qualms to drop a book I don't like at any point, it's just natural that there have and will be books that I, for one reason or another, do finish even if I didn't especially like them. This year, however, there have been books that I liked quite a bit and have had every intention to review, but have not had the opportunity to do so yet. The first book I finished this year was one such read.

I actually started reading The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton during the Christmas holidays. In the picture of me taken at Christmas I posted at the bottom of the post here, you can see The Tapestry of Love on the table.

The writer of The Tapestry of Love, Rosy Thornton, is the author of four novels, first one of which was published in 2006. Her latest, The Tapestry of Love, was published in hardback in July 2010. The paperpack came out in October. I was kindly given the novel by the author.

The Tapestry of Love is about a year in life of Catherine Parkstone, a 40-something English woman, who moves to the Cévennes mountains in France in order to start a new life as a tapestry maker and a seamestress. Life in a tiny community, however, is not always easy, neither is living in a foreign country, or starting a business.

I found The Tapestry of Love a very adult story. Catherine has a very civilized relationship with her ex-husband and her reaction to her sister's romantic entanglement with the man she herself is interested in is (at least outwardly) rather remarkable. While reading the novel I also realized that I hardly ever read books with middle-aged, close to fifty-year-old women as main characters! It was thus high time to diversify my reading that way, too.

I really enjoyed reading The Tapestry of Love. I especially liked the way the author described how Catherine little by little found her place in the little community she has chosen as her home and how her relationships with her neighbours developped. And Thornton's writing is simply charming, or what do you think about this lovely passage from page 301:

"She placed a jar underneath the tap, opened it up and waited. Nothing happened at first, but then, with creeping slowness, a bubble began to form in the mouth of the nozzle. It wasn't the anonymous pale gold of shop-bought honey but a rich mahogany brown, translucent, smooth and thick as caramel. The bubble fattened and swelled until she thought it would separate itself into a single round globule but, when the tension finally broke, it did not wholly detach but drew with it as it fell a thin tail of honey, a fine thread which gradually strengthened into a drizzle.
Catherine put a finger under the stream and watched it coat her skin, then pulled away and sucked her finger, closing her eyes and letting the honey dissolve on her tongue. It tasted of woodland."

Wow, say I. That is luscious, and sensual, and beautiful. I like a good plot, and The Tapestry of Love has one, but I love beautiful writing, and there is plenty of that in the book. This was the first Thornton novel I read. It will most certainly not be the last.