Jacques de Hogdeville was born in Paris in 1957 and brought up there. He studied English and Scandinavian languages at La Sorbonne and has been a modern language teacher for over 40 years in a variety of countries in Europe and Africa, and at present, teaches English phonetics at the Catholic University in Lille. He lives with his wife in Arras.
When a young French student had parked his old, dented 2CV, in front of an estate agency in a small seaside town on the East coast of England, he had an absent-minded look at the properties on offer in the window. When he realised how ridiculously low the asking price of a grand palatial house was, he walked in, asked to view the house, and bought it on an impulse, to the shocked horror of his mother and friends. Little could he guess that he was hopping into a trap that would cause him to be followed by the police in several countries, and even offer him an opportunity to discover what it was like to be remanded in custody, all that without ever realising what he was wanted for. Meanwhile, he had made friends for life in the town, and would never be able to stay very long away from his family, his friends, his lovely house, his job a couple of miles down the road, or the local garden fête.
Seventeen years after purchasing their grand residence, the narrator and his expanding family have comfortably settled into their dream home. Eager to enhance its beauty, they embark on a project to install a picturesque fountain in the garden. What seems like a straightforward task takes a mysterious turn when they unearth unexpected relics from the ground below. These discoveries reignite an old investigation they believed was long behind them.
As they delve deeper, they realize the house – and perhaps their family – harbours secrets that refuse to stay buried. Just when they thought they had moved past the shadows of their past, they find themselves confronting unsettling truths that threaten to shatter their newfound tranquillity. Dive into a tale where the past’s echoes can disrupt the present’s harmony.
Karen de la Gorce is a British contemporary portrait artist working full time from her studio in Arras, France. Her portraits include all people, often with pets or other precious items and in real settings. They are always colourful, with a powerful composition and often with an architectural / interior emphasis. Having trained as an Interior Architect, she is fascinated by composition, perspective, light and creating innovative ways to paint a contemporary portrait using the traditional painting method. Her portraits capture a moment in time and are often striking, playful and always original.
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