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Synopsis
NATIONAL BESTSELLER � From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Little Paris Bookshop, an extraordinary novel about self-discovery and new beginnings.Marianne is stuck in a loveless, unhappy marriage. After forty-one years, she has reached her limit, and one evening in Paris she decides to take action. Following a dramatic moment on the banks of the Seine, Marianne leaves her life behind and sets out for the coast of Brittany, also known as "the end of the world."
Here she meets a cast of colorful and unforgettable locals who surprise her with their warm welcome, and the natural ease they all seem to have, taking pleasure in life's small moments. And, as the parts of herself she had long forgotten return to her in this new world, Marianne learns it's never too late to begin the search for what life should have been all along.
With all the buoyant charm that made The Little Paris Bookshop a beloved bestseller, The Little French Bistro is a tale of second chances and a delightful embrace of the joys of life in France.
Review
NINA GEORGE is the author of the bestselling international phenomenon The Little Paris Bookshop, as well as numerous other books that have been published around the world. She also works as a journalist, writer, and storytelling teacher. She lives with her husband in Berlin and Brittany, France.***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***Copyright � 2017 Nina George
Chapter 1
It was the first decision she had ever made on her own, the very first time she was able to determine the course of her life.
Marianne decided to die. Here and now, down below in the waters of the Seine, late on this grey day. On her trip to Paris. There was not a star in the sky, and the Eiffel Tower was but a dim silhouette in the hazy smog. Paris emitted a roar, with a constant rumble of scooters and cars and the murmur of M�tro trains moving deep in the guts of the city.
The water was cool, black and silky. The Seine would carry her on a quiet bed of freedom to the sea. Tears ran down her cheeks; strings of salty tears. Marianne was smiling and weeping at the same time. Never before had she felt so light, so free, so happy. "It's up to me,' she whispered. "This is up to me.'
She took off the shoes she had bought fifteen years ago - the shoes she had needed to resole so many times. She had purchased them in secret and at full price. Lothar had told her off when he first found out, then gave her a dress to go with them. The dress was bought directly from a factory, and was reduced due to a weaving fault; a grey dress with grey flowers on it. She was wearing that too today.
Her final today. Time had seemed infinite when she still had many years and decades ahead of her. A book waiting to be written: as a girl, that was how she had seen her future life. Now she was sixty, and the pages were blank. Infinity had passed like one long continuous day.
She lined up the shoes neatly on the bench beside her, before having second thoughts and placing them on the ground. She didn't want to dirty the bench - a pretty woman might get a stain on her skirt and suffer embarrassment as a result. She tried to ease off her wedding ring but didn't succeed, so she stuck her finger in her mouth and eventually the ring came off. There was a band of white skin where it had been.
A homeless man was sleeping on a bench on the other side of the street that ran across the Pont Neuf. He was wearing a striped top, and Marianne was grateful that his back was turned.
She laid the ring beside her shoes. Someone was bound to find it and live for a few days from the proceeds of pawning it. They could buy a baguette, a bottle of pastis, some salami; something fresh, not food from the bin for once. Maybe a newspaper to keep themselves warm.
"No more food past its sell-by date,' she said. Lothar used to put crosses next to the special offers in the weekly newspaper inserts, the way other people ticked the TV programmes they wanted to watch. Saturday - Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Sunday - True Detective. For Lothar it was: Monday - Angel Delight past its best- before date. They ate the items he marked.
Marianne closed her eyes. Lothar Messmann, "Lotto' to his friends, was an artillery sergeant major who looked after his men. He and Marianne lived in a house in a cul-de-sac in Celle, Germany, with a lattice fence that ran along the side of the turning bay.
Lothar looked good for his age. He loved his job, loved his car and loved television. He would sit on the sofa with his dinner tray on the wooden coffee table in front of him, the remote control in his left hand, a fork in his right, and the volume turned up high, as an artillery officer needed it to be.
"No more, Lothar,' whispered Marianne. She clapped her hands to her mouth. Might someone have overheard her?
She unbuttoned her coat. Maybe it would keep someone else warm, even if she had mended the lining so often that it had become a crazy multicoloured patchwork. Lothar always brought home little hotel shampoo bottles and sewing kits from his business trips to Bonn and Berlin. The sewing kits contained black, white and red thread.
Who needs red thread? thought Marianne as she began to fold up the light-brown coat, edge to edge, the way she used to fold Lothar's handkerchiefs and the towels she ironed. Not once in her adult life had she worn red. "The colour of whores,' her mother had hissed. She had slapped Marianne when she was eleven for coming home in a red scarf she had picked up somewhere. It had smelled of floral perfume.
Earlier that evening, up in Montmartre, Marianne had seen a woman crouching down over the gutter. Her skirt had ridden up her legs, and she was wearing red shoes. When the woman stood up, Marianne saw that the make-up around her bloodshot eyes was badly smeared. "Just a drunken whore,' someone in the tour party had remarked. Lothar had restrained Marianne when she made to go over to the woman. "Don't make a laughing stock of yourself, Annie.'
Lothar had stopped her from helping the woman and tugged her into the restaurant where the coach tour organisers had booked them a table. Marianne had glanced back over her shoulder until the French tour guide said, with a shake of her head, "Je connais la chanson - the same old story, but she can only blame herself.' Lothar had nodded, and Marianne had imagined herself crouching there in the gutter. A need for escape had been building in her for some time, but that was the last straw - and now she was standing here.
She had left even before the starter had arrived, because she could no longer bear to sit there and say nothing. Lothar hadn't noticed; he was caught up in the same conversation he had been having for the past twelve hours with a cheerful widow from Burgdorf. The woman kept squeaking, "That's amazing!' to whatever Lothar said. Her red bra was showing through her white blouse.
Marianne hadn't even been jealous, just weary. Many women had succumbed to Lothar's charms over the years. Marianne had left the restaurant and had drifted further and further until she found herself standing in the middle of the Pont Neuf.
Lothar. It would have been easy to blame him, but it wasn't that straightforward.
"You've only got yourself to blame, Annie,' whispered Marianne.
She thought back to her wedding day in May forty-one years ago. Her father had watched, propped on his walking stick, as she had waited hour after hour in vain for her husband to ask her to dance.
"You're resilient, my girl,' he had said in a strained voice, weak from cancer. She had stood there freezing in her thin white dress, not daring to move a muscle. She hadn't wanted it all to turn out to be a dream and come grinding to a halt if she made a fuss.
"Promise me you'll be happy,' her father had asked her, and Marianne had said yes. She was nineteen. Her father died two days after the wedding.
That promise had proved to be one big lie.
Marianne shook the folded coat, flung it to the ground and tram- pled on it. "No more! It's all over! It's over!' She felt brave as she stamped on the coat one last time, but her exhilaration subsided as quickly as it had come. She picked up the coat and laid it on the arm of the bench.
Only herself to blame.
There was nothing more she could take off. She didn't own any jewellery or a hat. She had no possessions apart from her shabby handbag containing a Paris guidebook, a few sachets of salt and sugar, a hairclip, her identity card and her coin purse. She placed the bag next to the shoes and the ring. Then she began to clamber onto the parapet.
First she rolled onto her tummy and pulled her other leg up, but she nearly slid back down. Her heart was pounding, her pulse was racing and the rough sandstone scraped her knees. Her toes found a crack, and she pushed herself upwards. She'd made it. She sat down and swung her feet over the other side.
Now she simply had to push off and let herself fall. She couldn't possibly mess this up.
Marianne thought of the mouth of the Seine near Honfleur, through which her body would sail after drifting past locks and riverbanks and then float out to sea. She imagined the waves spin- ning her around, as if she were dancing to a tune that only she and the sea could hear. Honfleur, Erik Satie's birthplace. She loved his music; she loved all kinds of music. Music was like a film that she watched on the back of her closed eyelids, and Satie's music conjured up images of the sea, even though she had never been to the seaside.
"I love you, Erik, I love you,' she whispered. She had never spoken those words to any man other than Lothar. When had he last told her that he loved her? Had he ever told her?
Marianne waited for fear to come, but it didn't.
Death is not free. Its price is life. What's my life worth?
Nothing.
A bad deal for the devil. He's only got himself to blame.
She hesitated as she braced her hands hard against the stone parapet and slid forward, suddenly thinking of an orchid she had found among the rubbish many months ago. She'd spent half a year tending and singing to it, but now she would never see it flower. Then she pushed off with both hands.
Her jump became a fall, and falling forced her arms above her head. As she fell into the wind, she thought of the life insurance policy and how it would not pay out for a suicide. A loss of 124,563 euros. Lothar would be beside himself.
A good deal after all.
With this in mind, she hit the ice-cold Seine with a sense of joyous abandon that faded into profound shame as she sank and her grey flowery dress enveloped her head. She tried desperately to pull down the hem so no one would see her bare legs, but then she gave up and spread her arms, opened her mouth wide and filled her lungs with water.
Chapter 2
Dying was like floating. Marianne leaned back. It was so wonderful. The happiness didn't stop, and you could swallow it. She gulped it down.
See, Dad. A promise is a promise.
She saw an orchid, a purple bloom, and everything was music. When a shadow bent over her, she recognised death. It wore her own face at first, the face of a girl grown old - a girl with bright eyes and brown hair.
Death's mouth was warm. Then its beard scratched her, and its lips pressed repeatedly on hers. Marianne tasted onion soup and red wine, cigarettes and cinnamon. Death sucked at her. It licked her; it was hungry. She struggled to break free.
Two strong hands settled on her bosom. Feebly she tried to force open the cold fingers that, little by little, were cracking open her chest. A kiss. Cold seeped into her throat. Marianne opened her eyes wide, her mouth gaped and she spewed out dark, dirty water. She reared up with a long moan, and as she gasped for air, the pain hit her like a keen blade, slicing her lungs to shreds. And so loud! Everything was so loud!
Where was the music? Where was the girl? Where was the happiness? Had she spat it out?
Marianne slumped back onto the hard ground. Death hit her in the face. She stared up into two sky-blue eyes, coughed and fought for air. Feebly she raised her arm and gave death a limp slap.
Death talked to her insistently - asking a series of quick-fire questions as he pulled her into a sitting position. Marianne gave him another slap. He struck back immediately, but not so hard this time. No, in fact he caressed her cheek.
She raised her hands to her face. How had this come to be?
"How?' Her voice was a muffled croak.
It was so cold. And this roaring noise! Marianne looked left, then right, then at her hands, which had turned green from clutching the damp grass. The Pont Neuf was only a few yards away. She was lying beside a tent on the Rive Droite, and the hum of Paris filled the air. And she was not dead. Not. Dead. Her stomach hurt, as did her lungs. Everything hurt, even her hair, which dangled wet and heavy on her shoulders. Her heart, her head, her soul, her belly, her cheeks - everything ached.
"Not dead?' she spluttered in despair.
The man in the striped top smiled, but then his smile faded behind a cloud of anger. He pointed to the river, tapped his fore- head with his finger and gestured at his bare feet.
"Why?' She wanted to scream at him, but her voice disintegrated into a hoarse whisper. "Why did you do it?'
He raised his arms above his head to illustrate a dive, and pointed to Marianne, the Seine and himself. He shrugged, as if to say, What else could I do?
"I had . . . a reason, many reasons! You had no right to steal my death from me. Are you God? No, you can't be or else I'd be dead!'
The man stared at her from under thick black eyebrows as if he understood. He pulled his wet top over his head and wrung it out.
His eyes settled on the birthmark on Marianne's left breast, which was visible through the buttons of her dress that had come undone. His eyebrows shot up in surprise. Panic-stricken, she pulled at her dress with one hand. For her whole life she had hidden the ugly birthmark - a rare pigment disorder, shaped like fiery flames - under tightly buttoned blouses and high necklines. She only ever went swimming at night, when no one could see her. Her mother had called the birthmark "a witch's mark', and Lothar had called it "a thing of the devil'. He had never touched it and had always closed his eyes when they were intimate.
Then she noticed her bare legs. She tried desperately to tug down the wet hem of her dress and simultaneously do up the buttons to cover her chest. She knocked away the man's hand as he offered to help her to her feet, and stood up. She smoothed her dress, which clung heavily to her body. Her hair smelled of brackish water. She staggered uncertainly towards the wall of the embankment. Too low. Too low to throw herself off. She would hurt herself but wouldn't die.
"Madame!' the man begged in a firm voice, and reached out to her again. She rebuffed his hand once more and, eyes closed, swung wildly at his face and his arms, but her fists encountered only air. Then she kicked out, but he avoided her blows without retreating. Onlookers must have thought they were lovers perform- ing a tragicomic dance.
"Mine!' she yelled with each kick. "My death was mine and no one else's. You had no right to steal it from me!'
"Madame!' he said again, encircling Marianne with both arms.
He held her tight until she stopped kicking and finally leaned, exhausted, against his shoulder. He brushed the hair from her face with fingertips as rough as straw. He smelled of sleepless nights and the Seine, and of apples lying in the warm sun on a wooden shelf. He began to rock her in his arms. She had never been rocked so softly before. Marianne began to weep. She hid herself in the stranger's arms, and he continued to hold her as she wept for her life and for her death.
"Mais non, non.' The man pushed her away a little, lifted her chin and said, "Come with me.'
He pulled her after him. Marianne felt unbelievably weak, and the rough stones hurt her bare feet. Refusing to let go of her hand, the man drew her up the slope to the Pont Neuf.
When they reached the bridge, the stranger shooed away a couple of tramps who were inspecting two pairs of shoes: Marianne's pumps and a mismatched pair of men's boots. One of the homeless men was clutching Marianne's coat to his chest, while the other one, who was...
The Little French Bistro
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Little Paris Bookshop, an extraordinary novel about self-discovery and new beginnings. Marianne is stuck in a loveless, unhappy marriage. After forty-one years, she has reached her limit, and one evening in Paris she decides to take action. Following a dramatic moment on the banks of the Seine, Marianne leaves her life behind and sets out for the coast of Brittany, also known as “the end of the world.” Here she meets a cast of colorful and unforgettable locals who surprise her with their warm welcome, and the natural ease they all seem to have, taking pleasure in life’s small moments. And, as the parts of herself she had long forgotten return to her in this new world, Marianne learns it’s never too late to begin the search for what life should have been all along. With all the buoyant charm that made The Little Paris Bookshop a beloved bestseller, The Little French Bistro is a tale of second chances and a delightful embrace of the joys of life in France.
With all the buoyant charm that made The Little Paris Bookshop a beloved bestseller, The Little French Bistro is a tale of second chances and a delightful embrace of the joys of life in France."
The Little Breton Bistro
Marianne Messman, a housewife, wants to escape her loveless marriage and an uncaring and unfeeling husband of thirty-five years. Marianne and her husband, army sergeant major Lothar, take a trip to Paris, during which Marianne leaps off the Pont Neuf into the Seine, but she is saved from drowning by a homeless man. Angered by her behaviour, major Lothar takes a coach trip back home to Germany, expecting that a psychologist will escort Marianne home a few days later. While recovering in hospital, Marianne comes across a painting of the tiny port town of Kerdruc in Brittany and decides to try her luck on the coast. In Kerdruc, Marianne meets a host of colourful characters who all gravitate around the restaurant of Ar Mor (The Sea). It is this cast of true Bretons who become Marianne's new family and among whom she will find love once again. But with her husband looking to pull her back to her old life, Marianne is left with a choice - to step back into the known or to take a huge jump into an exciting and unpredictable future.
Marianne Messman, a housewife, wants to escape her loveless marriage and an uncaring and unfeeling husband of thirty-five years."
The Book of Dreams
Warm, wise, and magical—the latest novel by the bestselling author of THE LITTLE PARIS BOOKSHOP and THE LITTLE FRENCH BISTRO is an astonishing exploration of the thresholds between life and death Henri Skinner is a hardened ex-war reporter on the run from his past. On his way to see his son, Sam, for the first time in years, Henri steps into the road without looking and collides with oncoming traffic. He is rushed to a nearby hospital where he floats, comatose, between dreams, reliving the fairytales of his childhood and the secrets that made him run away in the first place. After the accident, Sam—a thirteen-year old synesthete with an IQ of 144 and an appetite for science fiction—waits by his father’s bedside every day. There he meets Eddie Tomlin, a woman forced to confront her love for Henri after all these years, and twelve-year old Madelyn Zeidler, a coma patient like Henri and the sole survivor of a traffic accident that killed her family. As these four very different individuals fight—for hope, for patience, for life—they are bound together inextricably, facing the ravages of loss and first love side by side. A revelatory, urgently human story that examines what we consider serious and painful alongside light and whimsy, THE BOOK OF DREAMS is a tender meditation on memory, liminality, and empathy, asking with grace and gravitas what we will truly find meaningful in our lives once we are gone.
A revelatory, urgently human story that examines what we consider serious and painful alongside light and whimsy, THE BOOK OF DREAMS is a tender meditation on memory, liminality, and empathy, asking with grace and gravitas what we will ..."
The Little Village of Book Lovers
A young woman with the extraordinary power to bring soulmates together searches for her own true love in this tender, lyrical standalone novel inspired by the “bona fide international hit” (The New York Times Book Review) The Little Paris Bookshop In Nina George’s New York Times bestseller The Little Paris Bookshop, beloved literary apothecary Jean Perdu is inspired to create a floating bookstore after reading a seminal, pseudonymous novel about a young woman with a remarkable gift. The Little Village of Book Lovers is that novel. "Everyone knows me, but none can see me. I am that thing you call Love." In a little town in the south of France in the 1960s, a dazzling encounter with Love itself changes the life of little orphan Marie-Jeanne forever. As a girl, Marie-Jeanne realizes she can see the marks Love has left on the people around her—little glowing lights on the faces and hands that shimmer more brightly when the one meant for them is near. Before long, Marie-Jeanne is playing matchmaker, bringing true loves together in her little town. As she grows up, she helps her foster father, Francis, begin a mobile library that travels all throughout the many small mountain towns in the region of Nyons, and finds herself bringing soulmates together every place they go—and there are always books that play a pivotal role in that quest. In fact, the only person that she can't seem to find a soulmate for is herself. She has no glow of her own, though she waits and waits for it to appear. Everyone must have a soulmate, surely—but will Marie-Jeanne be able to recognize hers when Love finally comes to her?
The Little Village of Book Lovers is that novel. “Everyone knows me, but none can see me."
The lady and the unicorn
The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries hang in the Cluny Museum in Paris. In each, an elegant lady and a unicorn stand or sit on an island of grass surrounded by a rich background of animals and flowers. Little is known about them except that they were woven toward the end of the fifteenth century and bear the coat of arms of a wealthy family from Lyons. Chevalier weaves a story about the tapestries.
The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries hang in the Cluny Museum in Paris. In each, an elegant lady and a unicorn stand or sit on an island of grass surrounded by a rich background of animals and flowers."
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
When a bookshop patron commits suicide, his favorite store clerk must unravel the puzzle he left behind in this “intriguingly dark, twisty” (Kirkus Reviews) debut novel from an award-winning short story writer. Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs—the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store’s overwhelmed shelves. But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia? As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left. “Both charming and challenging” (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review), Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is a “multi-generational tale of abandonment, desperation, and betrayal…inventive and intricately plotted” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
A Novel Matthew Sullivan. “This quirky debut novel will have particular appeal for puzzle solvers and booklovers. ... — Nina George , author of The Little French Bistro and the New York Times bestselling The Little Paris Bookshop “There ..."
The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction, Third Edition
Everyone’s favorite guide to fiction that’s thrilling, mysterious, suspenseful, thought-provoking, romantic, and just plain fun is back—and better than ever in this completely revamped and revised edition. A must for every readers’ advisory desk, this resource is also a useful tool for collection development librarians and students in LIS programs. Inside, RA experts Wyatt and Saricks cover genres such as Psychological Suspense, Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, Mystery, Literary and Historical Fiction, and introduce the concepts of Adrenaline and Relationship Fiction; include everything advisors need to get up to speed on a genre, including its appeal characteristics, key authors, sure bets, and trends; demonstrate how genres overlap and connect, plus suggestions for guiding readers among genres; and tie genre fiction to the whole collection, including nonfiction, audiobooks, graphic novels, film and TV, poetry, and games. Both insightful and comprehensive, this matchless guidebook will help librarians become familiar with many different fiction genres, especially those they do not regularly read, and aid library staff in connecting readers to books they’re sure to love.
Rollins also writes several other series with coauthors (such as the Order of the Sanguines books), as well as a series for middle grade readers. Although the Sigma novels do not have to be read in order, Sandstorm starts the run."
Si Pangeran Kecil
This book is an Indonesian translation of The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince). It is a poetic tale, with watercolour illustrations by the author, in which a pilot stranded in the desert meets a young prince fallen to Earth from a tiny asteroid. The story is philosophical and includes social criticism, remarking on the strangeness of the adult world. It was written during a dark, restless, but productive period for Saint-Exupery after he fled to North America subsequent to the Fall of France during the Second World War.
This book is an Indonesian translation of The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince)."
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