Fiona McIntosh is an internationally bestselling author of novels for adults and children. She co-founded an award-winning travel magazine with her husband, which they ran for fifteen years while raising their twin sons before she became a full-time author. Fiona roams the world researching and drawing inspiration for her novels, and runs a series of highly respected fiction masterclasses. She calls South Australia home.
Today, Fiona McIntosh is on the blog to answer a few of our questions about her latest historical novel, The Champagne War. Read on …
Fiona McIntosh (Photo by Anne Sropin).
Tell us about your book, The Champagne War.
FM: Well, what a story. It demanded its pound of flesh from me though. We were onto our fifth draft before we hit on all the right combination of characters stepping through increasing drama and all the simmering ingredients for a tense, compelling, engaging tale.
The darkness of WWI has lowered itself across Europe and everyone is feeling its shadow and sorrow. But if the Kaiser is going to take Paris – as he wants – then the fastest route and the easiest gateway is through the sun-drenched vineyards of the Marne region. All that stands between the German Army and claiming its prize of the French capital is the great cathedral city of Reims, its tiny but famous neighbour of Épernay that produces the globe’s champagne … and the will of the French with its allies that come from all over the world to fight alongside the French.
Sophie Delancré is sixth generation champenoise and a rebellious soul in the mould of famous champenoise predecessors, Veuve Clicquot and Madame Pommery. She has inherited her family’s champagne house and when the news arrives that her beloved husband of just weeks has been gassed and lost in the muddy graves of No Man’s Land in Flanders, she must overcome her grief and become a grape grower and producer of the fruit for her champagne against all the trauma thrown her way. And it feels like everything is her personal enemy, including the German army on the doorstep of her vineyards.
Captain Charlie Nash of the Leicesters is a chemist and a peacemaker but when the Germans release a killing gas in Ypres for the first time in history, he is moved to join up and fight Europe’s bully. He doesn’t want to be a hero and still he leads like one, rarely caring for his own safety and running at danger as though inviting the bullet, shrapnel or artillery that he is convinced has his name on it.
Two people facing impossible odds must overcome all the traumas that war throws at them.
What kind of historical research did you do for this novel? Can you talk a little bit about how your research influences things like plot and character when you’re writing?
FM: I read loads of non-fiction. That’s where it begins. Small towers of books about every subject I need for the story, from life in the trenches to the food of eastern France during 1918. I consume vast amounts of information and then when I feel I know what sort of story I’m working with I start my journey to get my feet onto the ground of every location that it might walk. For me it matters not that I have been to Paris many times, for instance. I call it my due diligence for the reader that I travel to each location in the book as though it’s the first time and my focus is purely in that location for this particular story. That focus does make a huge difference and as it turned out I had to visit the region of Champagne three times for the novel. There was just so much information to absorb that it couldn’t be done in one visit and this is mostly because I write organically. I don’t plot. So I kept returning to my base in Épernay to layer in more detail and richness to the tapestry of the book. All of my historical books usually take at least two visits to the location roughly six months apart. The first is more of a big picture view – gathering up broad brushstrokes for the novel, who to speak to and interview, which locations to settle on, discovering what else I need to read up about, visiting museums and galleries that can add important detail. The second trip drills down. I am talking one on one with people who have vital information … so lots of interviews and also journeying and taking more detailed notice of my emotional response to landscape, to location, to season, to the information I’m learning about. All of that becomes an important resource to the story. For instance, what would the landscape of my story look like in winter … summer? Very different.
Each novel is roughly two years in the making so I’m always working well ahead … so right now I’m beginning my reading research for the 2022 Christmas novel. If all goes well, I’ll be travelling by next May for that story’s first physical research trip but Covid may well interfere with my best laid plans. So a plan B is now being hatched ☺
Your novel takes readers all across the winemaking regions of France, especially Épernay. Did you learn anything surprising about winemaking or champagne while you were writing?
FM: Oh gosh so much, I wouldn’t know where to begin explaining, from the temperature of limestone cellaring to the tension of how much sugar to add or the moment to pick and crush those grapes. I think the fact I enjoyed learning about most was when the champenoise I was working with revealed that mood definitely affects how you taste champagne. I found that enlightening, especially as champagne is thought of as the party drink and indeed the best way to get a good party started. But champagne drunk in a sour mood will deliver a different flavour to the same drinker than if he or she were in a more effervescent frame of mind. Alcohol probably works in this way anyway, but I do think champagne – especially from what she said – responds more readily to individual mood. And I found that exciting in the same way that when I was researching my book on perfume to discover how individual perfume can be across different people wearing the identical fragrance.
What was the main inspiration for your protagonist, Sophie Delancré?
FM: A sixth generation champenoise called Sophie Signolle, whom I met by chance on the avenue de Champagne in Épernay. We got talking, became fascinated by each other and I realised Sophie was my character … she embodied everything I wanted in my fictional heroine; a widow, a talented, risk-taking champenoise with an independent spirit and a deep love for the landscape of Épernay and its history … and the people who had walked before her in the champagne industry.
What do you love the most about writing historical fiction?
FM: I love the enrichment that I personally receive while I’m researching. I am always learning about so much that is new in my life, whether it’s about how tea is grown and picked on the hillsides of Darjeeling, to how perfume was made at the turn of the previous century in Grasse, to the kindertransports that rescued Jewish children from Europe at the start of WWII … or indeed the trials and traumas of making champagne through the trench warfare of WWI. I also enjoy the challenge of the research … finding the right locations, finding the right voices that can give me the background I need, and waiting for my characters to tap me on the shoulder and walk into the pages of my mind.
What was the last book you read and loved?
FM: A book called Nine Pints … non-fiction. About blood.
Can you describe what a typical writing day looks like for you?
FM: I’m writing this in the first few days of spring, so for me the mornings are brighter – not yet much warmer – but I’m forcing myself to get up earlier and try and cram in a half hour’s exercise before the household gets going. I’m usually at my keyboard by 8:30 and I’ll deal with all my overnight email and the first few emails of the morning usually from the publisher, answering anything urgent. I’ll get down to writing by around 9:30 and work until about 1pm. Three hours or thereabouts is plenty to get my word count done. The afternoon is usually spent on admin, social media, newsletters, Q&As, and working with my masterclassers. I read my research books after 8pm and in between my drama viewing. Through Covid every day is the same and so I’m essentially working seven days a week. But in the good old days ☺ I used to work Monday to Thursday on writing and I would take Fridays off to do errands, keep appointments and the weekend was always about family. Right now, though, Tuesday could be Saturday.
What is the best piece of writing advice you have ever received?
FM: Kill the dog! That was from Bryce Courtenay whose masterclass I attended. I’d never even attempted to write creatively since school, and suddenly decided – aged 40 – to take a week long writing course. Naturally, he’d asked to see some pages. I’d bolted together an opening chapter that involved the mention of a dog that gets in the way of the villain and he liked it but he said, ‘you’ve got to kill the dog in this scene.’ I was horrified. I’m an animal lover, an advocate for animals, I prefer animals to people … I couldn’t kill the dog. But he insisted – ‘And that’s how you’ll quickly show rather than tell the reader who the bad guy is.’ He was right. In that one moment I learned more about how to direct character and show not tell, than any number of books could teach.
What do you hope readers will discover in The Champagne War?
FM: Apart from an addictive and emotional read, perhaps readers will discover that when it comes to war, even those who aren’t in immediate danger have to fight their own private battle of survival.
So, the women left behind – in this case, in France but essentially from every country that sent soldiers – were fighting physically to keep their towns and villages safe by taking on all the men’s roles while still giving birth, looking after children, nursing the sick/injured, developing new manual and labour skills, etc. They were fighting emotionally too, to stay strong through their fears and through their losses. And mentally they had to stay incredibly resilient; not give up, not show their anxiety, not capitulate to all the stresses. They still had mouths to feed, men to support through letters, parcels, nursing in hospitals, etc.
Meanwhile the men in trenches – and on both sides – were using every ounce of their ability simply to survive the attrition, the conditions, the relentless killing and horror.
My main characters represent all these parties. Sophie might be wealthy and privileged but she’s fighting a lot of demons … loss, fear, how to look after the people who count on her, how to look after her vineyards, how to still make champagne when she lacked some of its necessities, how to take care of the injured, how to keep people believing there was a future. How to keep her spiralling emotions under control.
Charlie, a pacifist is forced to pick up a rifle and kill strangers daily. He’s good at it and hates himself for it. He hates everything about the war but the use of poisonous gas tips him into almost a blind rage and a sort of panic that as a chemist he’ll be asked to develop something more toxic and murderous so he’d rather join up than be that person. And then his next few years is about kill or be killed. His world is small. He could be in Belgium or France but a trench is a trench and warfare doesn’t change. He does begin to appreciate the tiny joys in life … sunshine, birdsong, a cheap glass of wine, a kind word, a smile from a woman, the touch of another …friendship – even with the enemy.
I do wish we could learn from these stories and never make war again on each other.
Can I add that in painting this frightening landscape for the book I knew I had to add a counterbalance and it’s the champagne that brings all the joy to the story … And there is joy. I’ve imbued the pages with some marvellous descriptions of vineyards, making champagne, tasting champagne and Sophie’s theories behind the grapes that I hope will make every reader feel uplifted and rewarded for reading the story.
And finally, what’s up next for you?
FM: Two books. The first will be a new crime, featuring Jack Hawksworth. It’s called Mirror Man and will be released for June 2021. The book is finished – we all love it – and it’s now being put through its editorial paces as we shape the manuscript towards its final version. Given that the last time I wrote Jack was about a dozen years ago, I am thrilled that I could step back into his shoes with ease and understand him again, as much as enmesh him in another absorbing hunt for a killer in a baffling case.
And then in October 2021 we will release The Spy’s Wife, the next historical novel. Presently, I’m about 35,000 words in. It’s a switch up from The Champagne War and last year’s The Diamond Hunter by being deliberately set in the interwar years of 1933-1937.
Thanks Fiona!
—The Champagne War by Fiona McIntosh (Penguin Books Australia) is out now – limited signed copies are available from Booktopia!*
*While stocks last.
This book is part of our 2020 Christmas Gift Guide! You could win 1 Million Qantas Points when you order any product featured in our Christmas Gift Guide between 2 November and 14 December, 2020.*
The Champagne War
Limited Signed Copies Available!
From the killing fields of Ypres to the sun-kissed vineyards of southern France, The Champagne War is a heart-stopping adventure about the true power of love and hope to light the way during war.
In the summer of 1914, vigneron Jerome Méa heads off to war, certain he’ll be home by Christmas. His new bride Sophie, a fifth generation and rebellious champenoise, is determined to ensure the forthcoming vintages will be testament to their love...
Comments
January 7, 2021 at 10:21 am
Great book. Fantastic story telling!