Goodreads asked Angela Wren:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Angela Wren The very first idea for Messandrierre came whilst I was travelling in the Cévennes in September 2007. The Cévennes is an area of south west France that is mountainous and sparsely populated. The villages are small, the land is rugged and wild and the weather can change in a moment. As it did, overnight on September 28th/29th, 2007. I woke that morning to find the landscape covered in snow and it was that white covering that kept my mind exercised until I had formulated the idea of using snow to cover someone’s misdeeds – and the first paragraph of my story was born.

‘I died beneath a clear autumn sky in September, late in September when warm cévenol afternoons drift into cooler than usual evenings before winter steals down from the summit of Mont Aigoual. My shallow grave lies in a field behind an old farmhouse. There was no ceremony to mark my death and no mourners, just a stranger in the darkness spading soil over my body. Only the midnight clouds cried for me as they carried their first sprinkling of snow to the tiny village of Messandrierre. My innocent white coverlet allowing the earth around me to shift and settle unseen and become comfortable again.’

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