The Story Behind the Story - The Durand Family

The Durand family, Marcel, Françoise, Julien, Thomas, Guillaume and Marine, feature heavily in One French Summer With You. They take Evie in, they look after her and make her feel welcome when she gets to France. For me, they are the quintessential french family.

As all writers, I use all my experience, knowledge and observations to write these characters and the Durand family are no different.

They are based off of a family I knew when I was a kid. I went to school with the youngest daughter and her parents owned a farm. She had two or three brothers who still lived at home and an older sister who had moved out.

They had little but were kind, welcoming and happy to share whatever they did have. I remember she used to work on the farm in the summer, ploughing the fields with her dad and brothers. Collecting the bails of hay and storing them for the animals, she baked with her mother in their small terracotta kitchen (although I should add the Durand family home is based off of another friend from school's family home), and friends with her neighbours.

They were wholesome and represented a lot of good things about french people and that's how they made it into this book. Marcel may even look a little like the real dad they were based off of.

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