Book Recommendation: A King Alone by Jean Giono

"Just an aside. I wanted to say it. I have."

First published in 1947 in French as Un roi sans divertissement (a king without distraction). It's set high in the Prealps in France in 1843-48, where cloud and snow clamp down over everything in winter and where, during one particularly dense storm, villagers started to disappear.

Giono was a pacifist who was locked up by the Resistance. He'd also published in La Gerbe, the collaborator newspaper. He wrote this after the war.