‘Bloodstream’ by Sally Spedding

Published by Black Watch Books,
8 May 2022.  
ISBN: 979-881870940-6 (PB)

Set in the French province of Lorraine in 1985, we meet sixteen-year-old Pauling Ambrose Archibald, who has secured a position as an au pair in the home of Olivier Vincente and his wife Renée. 

Pauline finds that as far as the Vincente’s are concerned, she is a domestic servant.  Their house Les Salpins is not a happy home and their two children Nicolas and Solange reflect their parents’ unhappiness.  The only other occupier of the house is the dour housekeeper Frau Herrendorf, who was widowed in 1945.

We learn within a few pages of the death by drowning of the Vincente’s youngest child Gerard Louis Vincente who disappeared when he was 4 years old, last seen wearing his Christmas present from his aunt Hélène.   Following this tragedy Renée become depressed and mainly occupies herself with her rose cuttings.

Things in general are not going well for the Vincente’s either personally or financially and it is in this unhappy situation that Pauline finds herself.  However, when she meets Olivier’s twin brother the successful lawyer Jean Marie, husband of Hélène, she finds herself totally drawn in and her sexuality is awakened. As Pauline dreams about Jean-Marie her life becomes complicated.

When the death by drowning of another young child is reported, it hits Renée hard bringing again all her pain into sharp focus.  This event for Renée overshadows their worsening financial situation, but when Olivier lays out the reality of their position, they decide there is only one course open to them but are their solutions on the same page – possibly not.

Unaware of the Vincente’s problems, and with things not going how she would have hoped Pauline makes a decision, but is it a sensible one? 

This is a dark and chilling story. None of the characters are particularly likeable. They are each wrapped up in their own agenda’s, with little or no thought for anyone but themselves. However, despite the gloom and misery, I kept turning the pages I couldn’t put it down, I just had to know, how would the characters problems work out? And most important of all who had taken the children? And why? There are many surprises!
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett

Sally Spedding was born by the sea near Porthcawl in Wales and trained in sculpture in Manchester and at St Martin's, London. Whilst her work was demand, Sally began to realise words can deliver so much more than any narrative sculpture or painting. Her first crime mystery, Wringland, was published in 2001 and has a strong historical thread and is set in the bleak fenland around Sutton Bridge. Her second book Cloven also invokes the past. Sally has written a further seven novels. Her strong familial connections with the Pyrenees, Germany and Holland have provided her with themes of loss and exclusion. The dark side of people, and landscape. The deceptive exterior, the snake in the grass are all themes which recur in her writing. In 2018 she started a series featuring DI John Lyon. There are three books in the series. More recently she has a series of five books set in France featuring Lieutenant Delphine Rougier of the French Labradelle Gendarmarie.

http://www.sallyspedding.com