The Making of an Adventure

In my novel, Picking up the Pieces, heroine Jill Moss travels to numerous exotic locations in search of pieces of a peculiar Mayan artifact.

Many of these locations are based on places that I have either lived or visited. The house in this photo is one of them. An estate in the South of France, Bidaine was owned by an American couple when my husband and I and our two children went there to live in the late 80s. Originally an 18th century "hunting lodge" for the French aristocracy, this estate features water gardens, orchards, a swimming pool with a fountain in the centre, rose gardens, guest houses and a long "allee" of plane trees. The owners were collectors of 18th century antiques and costumes and the interior of the house had been converted back to the decor of the times.

In my novel, I patterned the home of Jill's mother's friend, Geneva, after this estate and describe some of its charms in the scenes that take place there. For more locations that appear in the book, take a look at my Pinterest board.

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