Briefly, A Delicious Life
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- 8,99 €
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- 8,99 €
Publisher Description
Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize
'Wildly seductive' – Sarah Waters
'Exquisite' – New York Times
'Deeply enjoyable' – Daily Telegraph
Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens is a story about breaking convention, and about love – secret, forbidden, unrequited.
Blanca has been dead for a few centuries when she falls in love – instantly and devotedly – with celebrated novelist George Sand. George is unlike anyone Blanca has encountered in hundreds of years of haunting: a woman dressed in men’s clothes, a ferocious writer, a passionate lover of men and women alike and an ambivalent mother.
It is 1838, and George has come to the island of Mallorca with her ailing lover, Frédéric Chopin. As the weather and the locals turn against this strange couple, can the love of a teenage ghost keep them from disaster?
'Dazzling' – Melissa Broder, author of The Pisces and Milk Fed
‘A luscious, multi-sensory bewitchment of a book’ – Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies
‘A shining work of art’ – Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory
'Electrifyingly beautiful, exhilaratingly clever . . . sensual, original, intelligent and brimming with love' – Imogen Hermes Gowar, author of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock
‘Hugely accomplished’ – The Guardian
‘A playful, otherworldly debut’ – Stylist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Stevens (Bleaker House: A Memoir) makes her fiction debut with a smart and haunting outing that immerses readers in Valldemosa, Mallorca, over four centuries. The story revolves around the ghost of a 14-year-old girl named Blanca, who died in the 15th century and is captivated by the appearance of author George Sand and her lover, composer Frédéric Chopin, on vacation in the late 19th century. Blanca is attracted to both men and women, and her playful, sensuous narration describes the centuries she's spent observing the trysts of monks in the monastery where she lives. Sand's masculine dress particularly excites Blanca, though it elicits disgust of the villagers. As Chopin becomes gravely ill, Stevens alternates the lovers' story with Blanca's memories of her own life and death, and Blanca dwells on feelings of blame toward the man who got her pregnant during their affair. Eventually, the stories entwine, as Blanca uses her ghostly powers to intercede in Chopin's fate. Though Stevens's idealized view of Sand can feel a bit Mary Sue–ish, for the most part it credibly reflects Blanca's romanticizing of a woman who "dressed like a man, kissed like a man, smoked like a man." This will entice readers.
