Penny Prompts #2 – The Quebec Jig

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This quote is from Louise Penny’s twelfth book of her Chief Inspector Gamache series, A Great Reckoning: A Novel.

It was such a great visual, especially for those of us living in the Northeast. Penny’s characters are obsessed with the weather, from spring flooding to blizzards to driving on the ice, to warming up at the bistro next to a warm fire with a chocolat chaud or cafe au lait.

When you read this quote, what comes to mind? What do you want to write about that’s related or adjacent?


“They stomped their feet, brushed wet snow off their coats, and slapped their hats against their legs. It was a singular Québec jig learned in the womb.”

-A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

Penny Prompts #1 – Maps are Magic

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This quotation comes from Louise Penny’s twelfth book in her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, A Great Reckoning: A Novel.

In this twelfth book, we find Gamache as the head of the Surete Academy unraveling the mystery of another death while also investigating a mysterious map from Three Pines. The quoted passage is a conversation between Gamache and one of the professors at the Academy, Hugo Charpentier.


“Oui. It’s because maps are magic.” If he didn’t have the Commander’s full attention before, he did now. Gamache lowered his tea to the table and stared. “Magic?” “Yes. They’ve become so mundane we’ve forgotten that. They transport us from one place to another. They illuminate our universe. The first maps were of the heavens, you know. What the ancients could see. Where their gods lived. All cultures mapped the stars. But then they lowered their sights. To the world around them.”

-A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

Pardon My English

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As you may know, and as I may have mentioned at least once, I have recently been obsessed by Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache book series. This could be a good as well as a bad thing. I’ve read the series twice now and have taken a few forays into the depths of some plot points. I am immersed. One of the negative things I find in binge reading and re-reading so closely together is noticing things like continuity errors that pop up on occasion, things that would typically slip by the reader if the books were read as they were released rather than all at once, the change of a pet’s name or a grandchild’s nickname; the age of someone when their parents died. There is also the redundancy that follows a book series in order to catch-up new readers with things that series regulars know, like the physical characteristics of the characters (I’ve had some issues with a couple of the women characters’ descriptions), their phobias (heights & closed spaces) and their foibles, their likes and dislikes (like Beauvoir’s love of steak frites – why mayonnaise with fries, someone please, please explain this to me, and his dislike of Anglos), their idiosyncrasies (the poetry), their hidden agendas and pasts that play into how they act and react to others and to situations. One of the things I do love about binge reading and re-reading is discovering the Easter eggs hidden and the foreshadowing that are only visible in hindsight.

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Tell Me What You Know

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Mont Royal.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
(c)2024

My first introduction to Louise Penny was with State of Terror, the book she co-authored with Hillary Rodham Clinton, which admittedly was what drew me to the book in the first place. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in mysteries and state department/political thrillers. It’s taken me a few years since then to rediscover the author Louise Penny when her Gamache Series was recommended to me recently in a writing class.

I may have mentioned in a previous note, here or on Facebook, that I’ve become obsessed with Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mystery series. I’ve read the entire series and am less than patiently waiting for the next book that will be released in October. I am about halfway through a second read-through – did I mention that I was obsessed?! I had recommended them to a friend of mine and it turned out she was already reading them! It is so hard to talk to her about them and not give her any spoilers. I had planned to write a proper review and recommendation for next week or the week after, however, today is a special day in the books (and in my own life as I’ll explain).

There should not be any spoilers not found in the synopsis on the backs of the books.

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