The Girl at the Lion d'Or  The Girl at the Lion d'Or by Sebastian Faulks, was the author's second novel. Set in the tiny French village of Janvilliers in 1936. Together with "Birdsong" and "Charlotte Gray", it makes up Faulks' "France Trilogy". The character "Charles Hartmann" is common to all three books. An unsigned prologue introduces the reader to 1930s France and sets-up the fiction that the novel tells the true story behind an actual newspaper report of the time. This is imagined as being a passionate adulterous love-affair between the book's two central characters with the nation's unstable political scene as its backdrop. The politics are rendered to us through the characters' every day conversation- they rely on newspapers for information- which means that the "history lesson" aspect of the book arises organically in the narrative. Written in the third person using a conventional omniscient narrator, the novel airs the internal motivations and viewpoints of various characters. The narrative tone is at times ironic; the author uses unfussy language to tell the story with economy. The vast majority of the scenes in the novel are set indoors, which gives it a domestic and claustrophobic feel. There are no descriptions of physical violence, but there is trauma and angst. The character of Mattlin is a truly vicious villain, while the mood is down-beat -- in fact, mock-Gothic in the Poe-inspired sub-plot involving the renovation of the Manor House. The book is shot through with mordant wit, but there are also lighter moments of tenderness and near-slapstick. On its publication, "The Girl at the Lion d'Or" was lauded in reviews for Faulks' ability to evoke a sense of time and place and for his adroitness in creating engaging characters. A wet and dark winter night sees young and beautiful Anne Louvert arrive in Janvilliers from Paris to take up a lowly position at the village inn, the "Lion d'Or". She gets to know the staff- the formidable Madame Concierge, the drunken Cook, the sex-starved Porter- and to meet the mysterious Patron. Then there are the customers: the evil Mattlin and the sensitive Hartmann most prominent among them. A generation older than she, the cultured, rich and married Charles Hartmann begins an affair with Anne. She reveals her secrets, her fears and her hopes to him trusting in their mutual love.