At Booking Through Thursday, Joy asks:
Which fictional character (or group of characters) would you like to spend a day at the beach with? Why would he/she/they make good beach buddies?
The first character who springs to mind is lovely young chef Bruno from Anthony Capella's The Food Of Love, a book I wrote about earlier this month. After a day of splashing in the surf of an Italian beach, who would not like to sit down to a campfire feast as the sun sets over the Mediterranean sea? Read the excerpt and see what I mean :-)
Viola survives a shipwreck, disguises herself as a pageboy and proceeds to succeed in a man's profession, cures Duke Orsino of his self-absorption, and generally carries the day in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. She would have some entertaining anecdotes to contribute to the fireside conversation! (In Trevor Nunn's 1996 film adaptation Imogen Stubbs plays Viola with great verve and sensitivity, and although I have seen the play performed on stage, I think this is my favourite version.)
Finally, as night scatters her stars across the heavens, I would ask Cathar troubadour and former Templar Hugo de Franjal from Laura Gilmour Bennett's historical romance, A Wheel Of Stars, to sweeten the air with his softest melodies.
Feel free to share the link to your own Booking Through Thursday thoughts!
