I fought the Loire, and the Loire won – Guest post by Ian Moore

Ian Moore describes himself as a comedian, author, columnist, corporate speaker, blogger, podcaster and chutney maker. He's also run an upmarket B&B in the Loire Valley, but more of that later.

The "author" part includes a best selling murder mystery series covering the adventures of the rather inept English owner of an upmarket B&B in the Loire. (Write what you know?) He stumbles across murders, which he and his partner Valerie D'Orcay solve in an unconventional fashion. The latest in the series is Death in le Jardin. It's hilarious!

He also has an acclaimed thriller series set in the same area, for those who prefer the edge of the seat stuff.

Here Ian tells us about the Loire and becoming a best-selling fiction author.

As any writer will tell you, where you set your book is vital, as important as any character. It informs, directs and gives reason to everything you want to take place, it is cause and effect and - bonus - if you happen to live there, you can save a fortune on research costs! The French word for setting is cadre, which is also the French word for picture frame and that, to me, is a perfect description of what a setting should be.

I have lived in the Loire Valley in Central France for twenty years and I made a promise to myself when I first moved here. I would not, under any circumstances, never in a million years, write one of those ‘family moves abroad’, fish out of water, humourously twee, sentimental bordering on mawkish ‘memoirs’. I wouldn’t parade my family like that, invade my own privacy for financial gain. Not me.

In my defence, I lasted out a whole seven years before I finally caved in and wrote, what is now being re-released as, Vive Le Chaos (LINK)

But I felt it was time to move on. It was time to write fiction. But about what? Where’s my inspiration? Well, like I say, I live in the Loire Valley, there’s so much inspiration around here you have to first spend time sorting out the highly stimulating from the merely exhilarating. And that’s just the stuff within fifteen minutes of my front door.

The oft-forgotten fact of the Loire Valley is that there are two great rivers running through it, not just the better known namesake. For centuries the Loire, the longest river in France, has been the romantic centrepiece, all regency chateaux and Joan of Arc. The less-heralded Cher, among its tributaries, has done more of the heavy lifting, with man-made trade routes extending further into the valley. The difference between the two rivers could be described as canonisation versus canalisation.

Chabris, three kilometres from me is on the River Cher. The bridge over the river was the border between occupied France and Vichy France in the Second World War, and while nothing much happens here now, there are modest monuments to its strategic past, such as the Circuit Jeannot Bizeau, a guided tour of local Resistance activity named after a local maquis. Two kilometres north of Chabris is the village of Gièvres. It has a population of just two and a half thousand now, but in the First World War it was a major quartermaster supply depot for the American Expeditionary Force, supplying front line troops with thousands of tonnes of equipment and rations on a daily basis.

Chateau Selles-sur-Cher

Three kilometres from me, but in the other direction is Selles-sur-Cher. Cheese aficionados may recognise the name as one of the premier goat cheeses, exporting all around the world. You can’t move around here for goat cheese variations and it’s an industry I used for Death and Fromage (LINK), where a murder is committed after vegan goats cheese is substituted for the real thing, a heinous crime for the locals. Recently Selles-sur-Cher has regained attention in other areas too. Its chateau has been largely renovated and hosts regular cultural and family events throughout the summer, while the 12^th-century church, with its exterior carved friezes, dominates the town centre. It overlooks the site, which is now the local bar, of  where Joan of Arc allegedly stopped off to have her armour polished before heading off to victory in battle. There is a lot of Joan of Arc folklore in the area which was a suggested motive behind a brutal killing in my book The Man Who Didn’t Burn (LINK).

Church Selles-sur-Cher

Religion also plays a big role in the wider area too. The medieval city of Tours is on the Camino de Santiago pilgrim trail, also known as the Way of St James, and attracts millions of visitors every year. The former capital of France, Tours is a beautiful old city with an enormous cathedral and home to the Basilica of Saint Martin. It’s history is long, bloody, creative and influential – the perfect mix for a crime writer. But sadly, that’s a whole 40 minutes away from my writing desk, so I’ve broken my own brief.

Chateau de Valencay

Closer to home, ten minutes drive and away from some of the blousier chateaux, is the Chateau de Valençay. Built later than all the other valley chateaux, it reached prominence in the early 19^th century when Napoleon asked his first minister and all-round fixer, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, to buy the place and use it as a hub of diplomacy. The treaty of Valençay was signed here bringing an end to the Peninsular War, much of the detail for the Congress of Vienna was bashed out here and in the Second World War, the Louvre Museum hid a myriad of treasures in its cellars; the Germans could do nothing about it as Talleyrand, the family who owned it at the time, were also German royalty, so the chateau was deemed untouchable. 

This is where I set my novel Death at the Chateau (LINK) and recently there was an exhibition dedicated to its wartime activities, adding to what is already a wonderful living museum, with restored gardens, an animal park and a very reasonably priced restaurant for the writer who needs a break from the endless inspiration.

Of course, what all this creativity, gastronomy, royalty, religion, geography, warfare and, of course, wine actually means, is that the whole area is a magnet for tourism. I even got involved myself when I decided that travelling back to England every week to perform stand up comedy was just too tiring, it was time to stay put.

I opened my high-end bed and breakfast in October 2018 and by early 2019 realised it was a terrible mistake. Some people are cut out for hospitality, some people should be kept away from the paying public, and I fall sadly into the latter category. Too often I was sorely tempted to plan the actual demise of difficult guests, before realising that that might have a disastrous effect on my TripAdvisor rating. So, I wrote about their demise instead, which kept me going through some awkward, painfully silent, breakfasts. This was how my first book Death and Croissants (LINK) came about and finally I got to put my inspiring location and the peace and tranquillity of the place to good use. I even closed the bed and breakfast for the good of the hospitality industry as a whole, and it’s now open as a Writers’ Retreat, La Pause – Val de Loire, so you too can be inspired to write here. Just don’t ask me to serve you anything.