Today I am delighted to have a slice of cake with Ros Rendle.
Ros used to work as a headteacher, writing reports, policy documents and stories to which young children would enjoy listening. Now retired, she enjoys the more challenging activity of writing for adults.
After living in France for eleven years, Ros found much inspiration in the people and places. More recently she is living in the UK again and likes to go dog walking or ballroom dancing with her husband. Although she has been caught out once or twice, it’s not usually at the same time!
Two daughters and four granddaughters also enjoy Ros’s books and support with answering questions.
What kind of books do you write?
Like cake, a good love story with all its #feelgood and flavour, adds to the sweetness of life. I also love to research and having lived in northern France for eleven years, I visited the battlefields many times and also Kew Records Office. I started to write early twentieth-century saga series fiction featuring three sisters and three times of European turbulence. I’m so gratified that these were award-winning. The third book, coming on 8th December, is also set in France but during WW2. The one after that in early 2022 features the Cold War. I’m particularly fond of this one. It’s to be called The Divided Heart.
I do like a good series, for people to get their teeth into while settling comfortably with a mug of something and a slice of well-earned cake, so another set of books have been accepted for publication by Sapere Books and they are all set around Moondreams House. These are more modern stories and feature eMotion School of Dance, Tea and Sweet Dreams, and A Cuckoo’s Counsel which is about the French gardener at the House.
Can you describe your writing why?
My mum was a published author several times over, many years ago, and she always encouraged me, but it wasn’t until we moved to France, and I had a lot more time on my hands that I decided to dig out the book I started twenty years earlier and never finished. I joined the fabulous Romantic Writers’ Association and was accepted onto their New Writer’s Scheme which gave me huge support and enabled me to secure a publishing deal for that book. This is to be reissued in 2022 by Sapere along with all the others. Unfortunately, Covid has created the backlog but it’s moving again now.
Share with us your favourite passage from the book you enjoyed writing the most
This is the first time Angela see this rural rough sleeper. Sometimes wisdom comes from the most surprising places, as she discovers in a time of emotional need.
Shambling towards her through the flowers was a figure clad in a ragged duffle coat too large for him, for a man she deemed him to be by the whiskered, rugged countenance. The coat was fastened around the middle with strips of knotted polythene which Angela recognised as pieces of plastic loaf wrapping. Despite the sun, or maybe because of it, a hood, pulled well down, hid the top half of his face. His legs were encased in what looked like black dustbin liners bound crossways with reddish twine. The feet were so padded out as to look like those of the Sandman in the Spiderman 3 film that she and Ade had been to see. How they had laughed. But not seeing this. Now, she was terrified. The contrast with the scenery and the bright, shiny day was stark and over-whelming. Angela took all this in, with a blooming of panic-stricken fear like the stain of blood in water, seeping and spreading insidiously.
From Cuckoo’s Counsel (The Moondreams House series)
Tell us about your latest project
I’m writing two books at the moment – one for each of the two series. Bee’s Beautiful Blooms and Gifts is about a young woman injured in Afghanistan, who has to forge a new career. She is to be mentored by the wayward son of Moondreams House, but he has troubles from his own childhood at the House. The other story is about the stepdaughter of Pretoria and Nathaniel in The Warring Heart which was published in September 2021 and tells of her Russian love interest who is interred by mistake in a British POW camp and the circumstances that caused this.
What is your favourite cake?
This is the hardest question of all to answer. I can leave crisps and biscuits but cake … Mmm! Let me think. There’s a shop near us where the owner makes layered chocolate cake or sometimes caramel, with frosting that dribbles down the sides. The top usually has either chocolate shavings and Maltesers or tiny squares of millionaire shortbread. She does a takeaway service too. Very dangerous! If I had to buy something from the supermarket … well anything would do, thank you.
You can connect with Ros here:
Join me next week when I will be doing my Christmas Special round-up of the year AND having a slice of cake with Ben Aaronovitch.
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Claire Buss is a multi-genre author and poet, completely addicted to cake. Find out more about her books on her website
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