Louise Welsh

What happens is that somebody turns up in the district, a young man, an architect from New York called Lucius Harney,

And this could develop into a story that you could summarise as innocent young village girl wronged by older, more sophisticated, richer man.

But for me, it's something much more than that, because it's quite a complicated and subtle book.

Charity Royal isn't just an innocent young woman.

She's something different from that.

I hadn't read it until very recently, and I really like it.

Chris Brookmeyer.

I wonder if she does actually fall in love with him.

My feeling was that he quite obviously fancies her.

And I think she loves the fact, as you can see, she realises that this man finds her attractive.

But I wonder if part of what it is, is that he represents something she wants because she is so frustrated and fed up with being stuck in this village, as indeed one would be.

And there he is.

He is somebody who is free, as far as she can see, who lives an exciting life.

And I think in a way what she loves is not so much him as what he represents.

Exactly.

It seems to me that the fact that it is summer, and Edith Walton describes the landscape so well, is all part and parcel of it.

I mean, there's a...

There's a moment she describes when Charity is sitting on the hillside over the village and she says, you know, she can smell the pine sap and the thyme and the fern.

And she says, and all were merged in a moist earth smell that was like the breath of some huge sun warmed animal.

I think the landscape and the sexual passion both sort of feed off one another, don't they?