Fresh Water for Flowers

*A NUMBER 1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER*A TLS' BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021: "Beautifully written and compelling to read.” “An appealing indulgence in nature, food and drink, and, above all, friendships.”—The Guardian 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.  The funny, moving, intimately told story of a woman who believes obstinately in happiness, Fresh Water for Flowers brings out the exceptional and the poetic in the ordinary. A delightful, atmospheric, absorbing tale. What readers are saying: “I'd read this book over and over again” “One of those books that you don’t want to end” “Absolutely amazing story” “This is one of the BEST BOOKS EVER WRITTEN!”“A really moving story of hope love and determination” “this is one of the most life-affirming books I have read”

“A beautiful, intensely atmospheric bittersweet dream of a book.”, "Beautifully written and compelling to read.”, “Valerie Perrin’s delightful Fresh Water for Flowers is a funny and moving story of one woman’s belief that everything will turn out right.”, "The story fluctuates between extremes with stylish elegance. It is melancholic and yet ebullient...What may on the surface of it appear gloomy and morose, in Perrin's hands is an appealing indulgence in nature, food and drink, and, above all, friendships.", “A tender and poignant exploration of love, loss, and redemption.”

Valérie Perrin was born in 1967 in Remiremont, in the Vosges Mountains, France. She grew up in Burgundy and settled in Paris in 1986. Her novel Forgotten on Sunday (2015) won the Booksellers Choice Award. Her English-language debut, Fresh Water for Flowers (Europa, 2020) won the Maison de la Presse Prize, the Paperback Readers Prize, and was named a 2020 ABA Indies Introduce and Indie Next List title. It has been translated into over thirty languages. Figaro Littéraire named Perrin one of the ten best-selling authors in France in 2019, and in Italy, Fresh Water for Flowers was the best selling book of 2020. Perrin now lives in Normandy. 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.