(Translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle) This is a beautifully written book, full of tender storylines… and unexpected revelations. The book was a massive hit in France where Perrin won numerous awards for her first novel Les Oubliés du Dimanche. This is her English debut. Violette Toussaint is a caretaker in a cemetery in a small town in Burgundy. Despite the unusual location this is by no means a morbid book. Violette’s husband has vanished and her days are taken up with tending graves, the comings and goings of mourners and grave diggers, visits from the local priest, and various cats and dogs. One day a local police chief arrives on the scene insisting on scattering his mother’s ashes on the gravesite of a complete stranger…. totally heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking, and hard to put down.
