📖 Blog Tour ~ Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin( Translated by Hildegarde Serle)

 

On Publication Day I am delighted to be a part of this Blog Tour

Europa Editions
10 June 2021

My thanks to the publishers and Midas PR for my copy of the book
and the invitation to the blog tour

Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Her daily life is lived to the rhythms of the hilarious and touching confidences of random visitors and her colleagues—three gravediggers, three groundskeepers, and a priest.

Violette’s routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of police chief Julien Seul, wishing to deposit his mother’s ashes on the gravesite of a complete stranger. Julien is not the only one to guard a painful secret: his mother’s story of clandestine love breaks through Violette’s carefully constructed defences to reveal the tragic loss of her daughter, and her steely determination to find out who is responsible.

An unforgettable story of love and loss told through the life of a woman who believes obstinately in happiness. Touching on the deepest aspects of human life, Fresh Water for Flowers brings out the exceptional and the poetic in the ordinary and reminds us of the life affirming value of kindness.

📖 My Thoughts..

Violette Toussaint is the caretaker of a small cemetery in Bourgogne. There she lovingly tends the graves and keeps watch over the souls of the departed.  Always ready to give a listening ear to the bereaved or supply cups of tea and chocolate cake to those in need of bodily sustenance, Violette is so much more than just a trusted guardian of the dead.

One day, police chief, John Seul, arrives at the cemetery to enquire if his late mother’s ashes could be buried alongside a man who was not his father. Entirely used to strange requests from the public, Violette and John Seul, form a close personal attachment and as they share the secrets of John’s mother’s clandestine love life so Violette’s own, rather sad, and at times, tragic life is laid open to scrutiny.

I’m a great believer that a special book finds its reader and Fresh Water for Flowers was everything I needed it to be at this moment in time. It’s wise and gentle, desperately sad and quietly funny, and whilst there are moments of true tragedy, there are also moments of great clarity. Beautifully written and so well translated from the original French that the narrative moves along perfectly seamlessly, sharing wonderful insights into love, friendship, motherhood, bereavement, death and, ultimately, the affirmation of life. I looked forward to each new chapter, and some of them are quite short, but heading each is a wise, and quite profound, piece of poetry, which lifts the spirit.

Quietly melancholic but so beautifully put together, Fresh Water for Flowers is a lovely, thought-provoking story which will stay with me for a very long time.

About the Author

Photo Credit : Valentin Lauvergne

Valérie Perrin is a photographer and screenwriter who works with (and is married to) Claude Lelouch. Her first novel, Les Oubliés du Dimanche, has won numerous prizes, including the 2016 Lire Élire and Poulet-Malassis prizes. Fresh Water for Flowers is her first novel to be translated into English and an international sensation. 

Hildegarde Serle graduated in French from Oxford University. After working as a newspaper subeditor in London for many years, she obtained the Chartered Institute of Linguists Diploma in Translation. She is the translator of A Winter’s Promise and The Missing of Clair de lune, atmospheric, absorbing tale.

Social Media

Twitter @Valerieperrin_ #FreshWaterForFlowers

@EuropaEdUK

@midaspr @gabriellamay24

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