A Village Betrayed

A poignant story of the impact of war on a defenceless French village during the Second World War. Four courageous villagers join the Maquis, the Resistance in Vichy occupied France, to protect their families. They are swept into a treacherous conflict where one false word or brave action can result in the torture and death of people they know and love. One old man and a young girl survive the savage destruction that wipes out the whole community.This novel uses the recorded history of the devastation of many rural villages in the Aveyron, Lot and Tarn departments of the Midi-Pyrénées. Oradour-sur-Glane in the Haute-Vienne Department is a famous memorial to the brutality of the Second World War.

Louise Croft lived for 10 years with her husband in a small village in the Tarn on the borders of the Aveyron River in France. Their home was 300 years old. “It was a life-changing experience, speaking French daily, absorbing the customs of country life, and making local friends,” describes Louise Croft. Details of the various markets, fetes, and vide greniers (bric-a-brac), hunting in the forests, and shooting the rats (loires) described in this novel are real events that she shared.

She has had the opportunity to live in 7 countries and work in 16. She emigrated alone from England to Australia in April 1989 with the Government Business Migration Scheme. She established an IT consultancy providing document management services for mining, engineering, oil and gas industries, as well as the federal and the State Governments.

She wrote and self-published her first novel, ‘The Edge of Life’, in 2020. It is based on the real experience of an Italian woman living in Puglia during World War II.