A Year at the Chateau Laura Lam The account of the trials

The account of the trials of Anastasia

War with France and Spain is raging and Sam is caught in the middle with a dangerous job as a powder monkey in the company of a brutal crew

But one does not need to have read a single word of The Pickwick Papers to be enthralled by the story of how this extraordinary novel came to be

on her return to England

A Year at the Chateau Laura Lam The account of the trialsLike many couples, Dick and Angel had long dreamed of living in France, but where others might settle for a modest bolthole in the French countryside, the Strawbridges fell in love with a 19th century fairytale chteau, complete with 45 rooms, seven outbuildings, 12 acres of land and its own moat. Throwing caution to the wind, Dick and Angel swapped their two bedroom flat in East London for an abandoned and derelict castle in the heart of the Loire