Fresh Water For Flowers by Valérie Perrin – Book Review

PUBLISHERS BLURB 

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 REVIEW 

Fresh Water For Flowers is a tale of loss and grief, but also love and friendship.

Violette has been the caretaker of a cemetery for twenty years. She’s very quiet but she has friends in the shape of the gravediggers and she talks to the grieving mourners.

Violette is such a lovely character, so empathetic as dealing with her own grief she knows how others feel. 

There are lots of memories and stories of those buried in the cemetery and a little mystery too. This is so beautifully written (and translated) with a gentle, almost poetic insight into grief and how we deal with it and memories of the past. A charming melancholic read.

Thank you to Gaby at Midas PR for the opportunity to be part of this blog tour, for the promotional material and ARC of Fresh Water For Flowers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

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 Clairdelune, atmospheric, absorbing tale.

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