Mixed Doubles

Round Ringford #6

by Ann Purser

Lose yourself in the pleasures of an idyllic English summer -- sunny village tennis matches, gossip in the shop, a barn dance. Everything seems comfortingly familiar, yet there is a darker core of loneliness and deceit beneath Round Ringford's enchanted exterior. Two new inhabitants lend excitement to the scene: Simon, just back from America, plans to liven things up with an informal tennis club; George, a different kettle of fish entirely, prefers the gentler pleasures of Ivy Beasley's famous cooking. But as the summer wears on, Simon and George find themselves facing a dilemma, and someone is sure to get hurt...

Genres: Fiction

Paperback

First published April 1, 1999

About the author

Ann Purser lives in the East Midlands, in a small and attractive village which still has a village shop, a garage, pub and church. Here she finds her inspiration for her novels about country life. She has only to do her daily shopping down the High Street to listen to the real life of the village going on around her.

Before turning to fiction, she had a number of different careers, including journalism – she was for six years a columnist in SHE magazine – and art gallery proprietor. Running her own gallery in a 400-year-old barn behind the house, she gained fascinating insights into the characters and relationships of customers wandering around. She had no compunction about eavesdropping, and sharpened up her writer’s skills in weaving plots around strangers who spent sometimes more than an hour in her gallery.

Working in a village school added more grist to the mill, as does singing in the church choir and membership of the Women’s Guild. She reminds herself humbly that Virginia Woolf was President of her local WI…

Six years hard study won her an Open University degree, and when she faltered and threatened to fall by the wayside, writer husband Philip Purser reminded her that he was paying good money for the course. During this period, she wrote two non-fiction books, one for parents of handicapped children (she has a daughter with cerebral palsy) and the other a lighthearted book for schools, on the explosion of popular entertainment in the first forty years of the twentieth century.

Ten years of running the gallery proved to be enough, and while it was very successful she decided to sell. The business moved down the street to another barn and owner, and Pursers stayed on in their house next to the village school – another rich source of material for the stories. Time to start writing novels.

Round Ringford became Ann’s village in a series of six novels, each with a separate story, but featuring the same cast of characters with a few newcomers each time. The list of books gives details of each story, and each features an issue common to all villages in our rural countryside. “Just like our village!” is a frequent comment from Ann’s readers.

Next: the Lois Meade Mysteries, each title reflecting a day of the week. Ann has always loved detective fiction, and determined to make it her next series. So Murder on Monday was born, followed by Terror on Tuesday, and Weeping on Wednesday. The rest of the week follows!

Mornings are set aside for writing, and the rest of the day Ann spends walking the dog, retrieving bantams’ eggs from around the garden, gossiping and taking part in the life of the village. She is never bored!

Reviews

[Igenlode Wordsmith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Literate chick-lit in an Archers-like setting of a country village rife with gossip, intrigue and extra-marital activity. The handsome son of the family up at the Big House comes home from America and causes a stir among the female part of the population; meanwhile an aging, courtly bachelor makes way among the older ladies, and stroppy teenage Poppy sparks off a scandal.

I found the enormous cast list of minor characters with their various backstories a little hard to keep on top of - apparently they are returning characters from a series of books with this same setting, and it was a little like jumping into the middle of an ongoing soap opera. But the main characters in this particular story are well established enough for us to be able to follow them amongst the various allusions to the others. Ivy in particular was very well-drawn, and I'm not entirely surprised to see that she apparently ended up with her own series later on...

[Arlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must say that as much as I loved this series, I was rather disappointed with this last book. One of the characters did something that really upset me and it is hard for me to get over it, even though I remind myself that this is just a book!! Maybe one reason I did not like this one as well is precisely because it is the end of the Round Ringford books. But I will add this series to my bookshelf to pull out and read when I long to read about an English village.

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice end to the series. Most people lived happily ever after.