The e-book 'Crazy about the Creuse - Jottings from the heart of France' is a 110,000-word pot-pourri of 73 illustrated articles - both humorous and serious - selected from those that author Anne Loader contributed to pontnoir.com, a now-defunct website aimed at English-speaking home-owners in the department of the Creuse.
Readers new to Anne's writing will find eleven articles based on extracts from her three St Paradis books, 'A Bull by the Back Door', 'The Duck with a Dirty Laugh' and 'The Bells of St Paradis', which will act as an introduction to the series. These pieces were originally written because most of her pontnoir.com website followers in France had not had the chance to read the paperback books.
Now the Loaders have retired and can spend much more time at St Paradis, Anne felt that the previous journal format was inappropriate for any future titles. So to please her fans, who asked for more, she has gathered together a collection of 73 illustrated articles 'both humorous and serious' from those that she contributed over a period of five years to the discontinued pontnoir.com. We did not want all the work involved in researching and writing the pieces to vanish into the ether.
Since her three autobiographical titles - set 20 or more years ago - appeared as e-books, lots of readers have asked "What happened next?" However, Anne felt that she could not continue the previous diary format as it was inappropriate. Now the Loaders have retired and can spend much more time at St Paradis, their life is conducted in a different way.
She also did not want to write about the deaths of her much-loved elderly neighbours who became favourite characters in the earlier books. Some younger friends have moved away. The village has now emerged into the 21st century and changed, with a non-parochial population who are thoroughly at home with their fibre-optic internet, solar panels and computer-controlled combine harvesters.
The original pontnoir.com articles were written under the pseudonym of "Annik". They have been updated and added to for the Kindle version and many additional colour photographs have been included - bringing the number of illustrations up to 160. There is an introduction about the department for those who do not know the Limousin region, and the e-book should appeal to all those who love France.
The actual price you will be charged by a distributor for one of our e-books varies considerably depending on a range of things which makes it impossible to include prices here. If you would like to buy one, please check on the distributor's site that you normally use.
One of the major factors is that unlike paper books which are zero-rated in the UK for VAT, e-books attract the VAT at the national standard rate. Due to changes in European VAT rules on 1st January 2015 the VAT to be charged will depend on the country in which the e-book is bought rather than the previous situation which was the country from which it was sold. The applicable level of VAT will vary between 5.5% (France) and 23% (Ireland).
Anne Loader started in journalism in 1965, with East Midland Allied Press in Lincolnshire and Norfolk. After her marriage she worked as a reporter and education correspondent on the Southern Evening Echo at Southampton. She was the feature writer on Northwich World from 1980-84 and was editor of the Crewe Guardian for ten years until 1995 when she was made redundant. She now jointly runs Léonie Press, publishing short-run books on autobiography and local history. Anne wrote the first of the series of books, 'A Bull by the Back Door', to amuse her late mother, then an Alzheimer's sufferer, who had lived in France and had instilled a passion for the country in her daughter from her earliest years. Anne has also written for British glossy magazines specialising in French subjects.