Le Château

<p>When a well-to-do extended English family find their perfect escape from the pressures of the city a 17th Century château awaiting renovation in a quiet corner of rural France everything is très bon. They are welcomed into the commune make new friends and enjoy the peaceful rustic lifestyle - until a powerful politician with a Machiavellian agenda sets out to ruin them. Against a backdrop of intrigue blackmail and skeletons of Nazi collaboration from World War II the evils of corruption envelop their Gallic dream in <em>Le Château: A Very French Affair</em>. It's both a cautionary tale and a spot-on study of what can happen when friendly well-meaning outsiders - in this case a clan of Londoners - try to become insiders in a land with a very foreign culture. The author Nick Hampton a dual English-Australian national wrote the novel from a position of great insight: his own home in the south of France.</p>