I’m back with two more books for you to check out. If you are participating in Paris in July one of these would be perfect as it is set in Paris. But even if you aren’t participating and just want to do a bit of arm chair travel, these are books by French authors that I’ve recently discovered and can recommend.

Fresh Water for Flowers
By Valérie Perrin; translated by Hildegarde Serle

“My name is Violette Toussaint. I was a level-crossing keeper, now I’m a cemetery keeper. I savor life, I sip at it, like jasmine tea sweetened with honey. And when evening comes, and the gates to my cemetery are closed, and the key is hanging on my bathroom door, I’m in heaven.”

Violette has been caring for a small cemetery in Bourgogne for 20 years. She escaped her former life after her relationship was faltering and a tragic event took place. But though she lives in a cemetery, she has all that she needs. The quirky staff that keeps the places running and the tombstones and the stories the hold. One day Detective Julian Seul  comes to the cemetery to lay his mother’s ashes at the tombstone of her lover. He’ll meet Violette and as the two share their pasts they learn to move heal and move forward.

Some of the best parts about this book were the moments where Violette shares more of her carefree ways, like the lighthearted pranks she’ll pull on some of the visitors. After dealing with grief it was nice to see how she slowly gained confidence in moving on in life. I loved the cemetery staff too. The story has a lot going for it but I thought it took too long to get to what had happened in Violette’s life and the story of Julian’s mother, while interesting was also just drawn out too long.

The Readers’ Room
By Antoine Laurain; translated by Jane Aitken, Emily Boyce and Polly Mackintosh

“Two million French people dream of having their book published if the surveys that have appeared over the years are to be believed. Most of them never get round to actually writing the book. Their drafts staying in their head all of their lives – a dream that they like to entertain on holiday.”

At the Parisian publishing house headed by Violaine Lapage, a manuscript titled Sugar Flowers, arrives and has all the readers abuzz with the promise of holding a special book manuscript in their hands. Violaine tries to meet the mysterious author, Camille Desencres, but all she has is an email and decides to publish the book anyway. Now it looks like the book is about to win the prestigious Prix Goncourt and Violaine can’t reach Camille and then things start to get more complicated when police detectives notice a similarity in some crimes to those in the book.

I loved this book. From the tidbits of the publishing world, to the details of Violaine’s rise in the publishing world. It is all so wonderful and for such a slim novel, you really get such a sense of place. There is so much more I’m leaving out but I don’t want to spoil this in case you read it and if you like books about books or books set in Paris or mysteries, then this is one you cannot miss.

These were advance review copies from the publishers.

Both of these also count towards my Reading in Translation Reading Challenge. Let me know if these sound good to you or if you’ve already read them.

In a recent post I mentioned about being behind on book recaps and I said I was about 11 books behind – make that 17. So I’m try to catch up and here is a bit on two books I read in the last few months.

The Book of Two Ways
By Jodi Picoult

“My mother, who lived and died by superstitions, used to make us say together before we went on a trip: We’re not going anywhere. It was meant to trick the Devil. I can’t say I believed in that kind of thing, but then again, I didn’t say it before I left home, and look where that got me.”

Dawn is a death doula, someone who is there for others as they are confronting their mortality. She used to be an Egyptologist and she dreamed of making great discoveries but her life path took her another way and she stayed in Boston away from digs and is married to a physicist and they have a teen daughter. However as the novel opens she’s headed back to Egypt to confront her past and as the plane begins to experience major turbulence and passengers and crews prepare for a crash her thoughts are on the handsome, Win who stole her heart. What if her decisions had been different, how would her life have turned out?

There is so much to unpack in this novel from the what-ifs to archeology and from physics to the afterlife. It is a lot and while I like a bit of all the things mentioned, well maybe not physics, trying to put all of this in a novel did not work out well in my opinion. And, then there is the ending. I read this long, slow book for that ending? I’m sorry, I think Picoult can really write an engaging story but this was not one of those.

Lurkers
By Sandi Tan

“The girls felt a certain nostalgia for how simple life had been just a month before, when their father was alive. There was a time for everything then. They were home from school at 3:40, ramen boiled at 3:45, homework was pulled out at 4:00 and at 4:02, the Mystery Boom Box started blasting its infernal melodies.”

Mira and Rosemary’s life is turned upside down when their father commits suicide and their mother believes that their own solution is to go back to Korea, never mind that the girls were not born there. The girls decide they must do whatever is in their power to convince their mom that they need to stay in their home and of course make destructive and unfortunate choices. Meanwhile the other residents of Santa Claus Lane are also dealing with their own problems, choices and consequences.

I think the title is very fitting for this story because you do feel like a voyeur, peeking into the sordid lives of the residents and almost flinching at what you encounter. From the beginning when we know the girls’ dad dies, I thought I was going to be feeling a lot for the predicament the girls found themselves in but I found them hard to like and don’t even get me started on some of the other characters. I read some reviews of this novel and how it’s witty and funny but I just found this too dark for me.

These were advance review copies from NetGalley.

Let me know if you’ve read these or have them on your wishlist. While my reviews were negative on these may be for you and if you did read them I’d love to hear what you thought.