Review
Bitter, balanced and sophisticated...Powerful tale of female need, desire and projection ... highly compelling (LITERARY REVIEW )
A gift to treasure (The TIMES )
A gift to treasure (The TIMES )
THE TIMES
'A gift to treasure'
Book Description
* Writing as exquisite and tactile as this is not to be missed' - DAILY MAIL * A novel about memory and desire and about different kinds of love.
Product Description
In her place as maid to Madame Patin in the cafe next to the sea, orphan Genevieve becomes the breathless audience for her mistress's alarming folk stories, beginning with the one about the mermaid - the beauty who is also a monster - who must be killed. Genevieve happily falls into the patterns and ways of Madame Patin and contentedly cooks, cleans, gardens and serves the customers alongside her. Until, that is, Genevieve ripens to siren beauty. To avoid the mermaid's fate she must take flight. And she does, to a poet who has the hearts of all his women: his mother, his mistress, his niece, his niece's governess - and before long, his new maid's.
About the Author
Half-English and half-French, Michèle Roberts was born in 1949. DAUGHTERS OF THE HOUSE (1992) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the WH Smith Literary Award.
