Women's Fiction
![Nina George - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B00T6L4LCM.jpg)
The Little Village of Book Lovers: A Novel
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'm 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 infant orphan Marie-Jeanne forever.
As a girl, Marie-Jeanne realizes that she can see the marks Love has left on the people around her-tiny 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 village.
As she grows up, Marie-Jeanne helps her foster father, Francis, begin a mobile library that travels throughout the many small mountain towns in the region of Nyons. She finds herself bringing soulmates together every place they go-and there are always books that play a pivotal role in that quest. However, the only person that Marie-Jeanne 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 her way?
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'm 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 infant orphan Marie-Jeanne forever.
As a girl, Marie-Jeanne realizes that she can see the marks Love has left on the people around her-tiny 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 village.
As she grows up, Marie-Jeanne helps her foster father, Francis, begin a mobile library that travels throughout the many small mountain towns in the region of Nyons. She finds herself bringing soulmates together every place they go-and there are always books that play a pivotal role in that quest. However, the only person that Marie-Jeanne 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 her way?
Editorial Reviews
"Brimming with magic . . . Full of allegory and mysticism, the book often feels more like a poem than a novel. . . . nuanced and enchanting . . . an elegantly crafted, unhurried examination of the enthralling and elusive nature of love."-Kirkus Reviews
"An appealing companion piece to The Little Paris Bookshop . . . George convincingly portrays her characters' emotions. . . . Charming."-Publishers Weekly
"This spin-off of George's beloved The Little Paris Bookshop-this is the book within that one-is narrated by omniscient and powerful representations of abstract concepts, with Love, Pride, and Fate all weighing in, and this creative framing adds to its considerable charm. George pays particular attention to the romantic potential of the everyday-those mundane events that can spark new feelings in anyone hoping for a chance at love. Fans . . . will adore George's latest exploration of life, love, and destiny."-Booklist
"An appealing companion piece to The Little Paris Bookshop . . . George convincingly portrays her characters' emotions. . . . Charming."-Publishers Weekly
"This spin-off of George's beloved The Little Paris Bookshop-this is the book within that one-is narrated by omniscient and powerful representations of abstract concepts, with Love, Pride, and Fate all weighing in, and this creative framing adds to its considerable charm. George pays particular attention to the romantic potential of the everyday-those mundane events that can spark new feelings in anyone hoping for a chance at love. Fans . . . will adore George's latest exploration of life, love, and destiny."-Booklist
Readers Top Reviews
MEGElizabeth Huma
This author has become a favorite (maybe it is because I love France) I found myself caring what happened to each of the characters and because it wasn't predictable it was especially satisfying to reach the end !
Carol Tikkanen
Liked the depth of emotion reflected in protagonist’s narrative. Was upset with early focus on suicide. Was hard to embrace her feelings of failure instead of taking action on her own behalf. Was glad when she emerged by taking control of her self-worth. Thought some sections of plot seemed contrived as protagonist evolved and book reflected ups and downs of life’s cycle in characters.
E. R.Linda Choy
The original English title of this book is The Little Breton Bistro. For publication in the US the word "French" is substituted for "Breton". Should I be insulted that the marketers think their US target audience won't know what Breton means? In this book, Marianne escapes a bleak existence and loveless marriage and discovers real life and love in a sojourn on France's Breton coast. For this sort of story, I prefer Enchanted April and Shirley Valentine. Both are movies about women who have to venture away from their familiar surroundings to find themselves and be happy. The Enchanted April was based on a book by the same title. Both stories are more realistic, and The Enchanted April is better written.
AaronE. R.Linda C
I bought this book because we are planning a trip to Brittany. I had not heard of the author, and, based on the title, had relatively expectations. By the second chapter, Ms George had captured me. She didn't let go until the last sentence. Richly drawn characters and Marianne's self discovery are painted on the culturally and physically lush canvas of Brittany. As a 67 year old male, I was delighted that older characters were full, romantic and even sexy/sensual. Is this great literature? Probably not. Is it a delightful and engrossing read? Absolutely. I will seek out others by this author.
Constant ReaderMi
Marianne is miserable. The story opens with Marianne’s attempted suicide. You can tell the depths of her despair that she is in Paris with her husband and still ready to plunge into the river. Suicide plans are not novel as novel beginnings. The suicide plan or attempt seems to be popular as a new beginning for a main character with a departure from the unhappy life “before” and the start of a journey toward a new life. Marianne is from Germany and it has not been a good 40 years of marriage to her emotionally abusive husband. She is 60 years old when she walks out of the psychiatric hospital in Paris to find herself. This is, of course, a romantic fairytale. She saves others and thereby saves herself. She travels to Brittany without money, clothing, or an ability to speak French. I love Brittany and enjoyed the setting. The story is predictable, unbelievable, and filled with a mélange of druids, standing stones, Merlin, whispering seas, secret stifled loves, faith healing, wasted years, and benevolent witchcraft. Not to mention occasional sermons about valuing yourself. The sadness from the wasted years is something that lingers over the whole book. This is not a book group book. Like many of the other reviewers, I preferred The Little Paris Bookshop also by Nina George.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
Love and the Maiden
Marie-Jeanne's cradle stood under a broad-canopied olive tree some people claimed was over eight hundred years old, something the tree would neither confirm nor deny (at its age, one did not comment on how old one was).
She was giggling at the silvery rustling of the leaves, which were smiling in the gentle Pontias breeze. The wind was a local phenomenon, a last taste of magic in a century seemingly shorn of it. It was the steady breath of the four mountains-Essaillon, Garde Grosse, Saint Jaume, and Vaux-that shielded the town of Nyons like sentinels. The mountains breathed out in the morning, filling the valley of the river Eygues with the scent of herbs and the cool air of upland nights, always at the same time of day for precisely half an hour, and inhaled again after sundown every evening. This cool stream of air seemed to rise in the calanques and salty bays of the distant sea. It brought with it fragrances of lavender and mint and drove the searing heat from the day.
From the large kitchen-the main living space in every mazet in the Drôme Provençale, a place for cooking, chatting, staying silent, being born, and waiting for the end to come-Aimée was able to keep an eye on her granddaughter's cradle as she shuttled back and forth between the wood-
fired stove and the table.
Aimée placed sliced potatoes, black Tanche olives, eggplants, and fresh pink garlic in a well-worn fluted baking tin; drizzled the vegetables with silky, hay-green olive oil; and scooped chunks of the local fromagerie's fresh goat cheese from a clay dish. Last, she rubbed some sprigs of lime-scented wild thyme she'd picked the previous evening between her fingers.
A pan of milk was cooling on the windowsill. It would soon be time. Marie-Jeanne was quite capable of making her feelings known if her grandmother was too slow getting lunch ready.
Every time Aimée turned her face toward her grand-daughter, her thousand sharp wrinkles softened into a far younger complexion.
The proud old olive tree went on singing its chanson to the little girl under its boughs. It hummed the secret song of the cicadas-your light makes me sing. It tickled her nose and cheeks with a dappling of shadows and delighted in the tiny fingers clutching at the breeze and in the waves of gurgling, heartfelt laughter issuing from her tummy.
Marie-Jeanne and Aimée. Each meant the world to the other.
It was love.
I watched Aimée Claudel, whom I had last touched many years ago, but she couldn't see me. Everyone knows me, but none can see me. I'm that thing you call love.
I came to Marie-Jeanne's grandmother early in her life.
She was barely thirteen at the time. It was summertime then, too-the record-breaking summer of 1911. Life took place outdoors. For weeks on end, this bright land boiled under the sun. After laboring since before sunrise, people whiled away the evening hours in blissful idleness. That summer was sweet and redolent with the melodies and whisperings of the leaves of the olive trees. The grasshoppers chirped their silvery tunes. And oh, the soft fall of the figs at night! The whole summer was like a dazzling fever.
I placed my burden on so many people that summer. How heavily I was to weigh on them only a few years later. Aimée fell in love with a boy who used to sing as he worked in her father's milking parlor. First he became a soldier; in the Great War he became a man. He didn't return for many years and when he did, his boyish nature had retreated deep inside him, along with all his songs and all his colorful cheer. The mountains were so silent, but the roaring inside him was so loud. As his wife, Aimée spent the rest of her life exhuming his buried soul. She sang soft lullabies to him in the night when he screamed, chased the dullness from his eyes with patience, and fed him hot onion soup in the evenings when he drank. In the quiet, endless winter nights she warmed her husband's body with her bare skin to calm his incessant shivering. Her skin became softer and softer over the years, ever thinner, even as it burst with emotions and energy and cares. With life itself.
Back in the summer of 1911 I touched Aimée's skin, running my hands down her body from top to toe. She was naked and had just bathed in the Eygues's shimmering turquoise waters as they flowed toward the calm and mighty Rhône. She was beautiful, he...
Love and the Maiden
Marie-Jeanne's cradle stood under a broad-canopied olive tree some people claimed was over eight hundred years old, something the tree would neither confirm nor deny (at its age, one did not comment on how old one was).
She was giggling at the silvery rustling of the leaves, which were smiling in the gentle Pontias breeze. The wind was a local phenomenon, a last taste of magic in a century seemingly shorn of it. It was the steady breath of the four mountains-Essaillon, Garde Grosse, Saint Jaume, and Vaux-that shielded the town of Nyons like sentinels. The mountains breathed out in the morning, filling the valley of the river Eygues with the scent of herbs and the cool air of upland nights, always at the same time of day for precisely half an hour, and inhaled again after sundown every evening. This cool stream of air seemed to rise in the calanques and salty bays of the distant sea. It brought with it fragrances of lavender and mint and drove the searing heat from the day.
From the large kitchen-the main living space in every mazet in the Drôme Provençale, a place for cooking, chatting, staying silent, being born, and waiting for the end to come-Aimée was able to keep an eye on her granddaughter's cradle as she shuttled back and forth between the wood-
fired stove and the table.
Aimée placed sliced potatoes, black Tanche olives, eggplants, and fresh pink garlic in a well-worn fluted baking tin; drizzled the vegetables with silky, hay-green olive oil; and scooped chunks of the local fromagerie's fresh goat cheese from a clay dish. Last, she rubbed some sprigs of lime-scented wild thyme she'd picked the previous evening between her fingers.
A pan of milk was cooling on the windowsill. It would soon be time. Marie-Jeanne was quite capable of making her feelings known if her grandmother was too slow getting lunch ready.
Every time Aimée turned her face toward her grand-daughter, her thousand sharp wrinkles softened into a far younger complexion.
The proud old olive tree went on singing its chanson to the little girl under its boughs. It hummed the secret song of the cicadas-your light makes me sing. It tickled her nose and cheeks with a dappling of shadows and delighted in the tiny fingers clutching at the breeze and in the waves of gurgling, heartfelt laughter issuing from her tummy.
Marie-Jeanne and Aimée. Each meant the world to the other.
It was love.
I watched Aimée Claudel, whom I had last touched many years ago, but she couldn't see me. Everyone knows me, but none can see me. I'm that thing you call love.
I came to Marie-Jeanne's grandmother early in her life.
She was barely thirteen at the time. It was summertime then, too-the record-breaking summer of 1911. Life took place outdoors. For weeks on end, this bright land boiled under the sun. After laboring since before sunrise, people whiled away the evening hours in blissful idleness. That summer was sweet and redolent with the melodies and whisperings of the leaves of the olive trees. The grasshoppers chirped their silvery tunes. And oh, the soft fall of the figs at night! The whole summer was like a dazzling fever.
I placed my burden on so many people that summer. How heavily I was to weigh on them only a few years later. Aimée fell in love with a boy who used to sing as he worked in her father's milking parlor. First he became a soldier; in the Great War he became a man. He didn't return for many years and when he did, his boyish nature had retreated deep inside him, along with all his songs and all his colorful cheer. The mountains were so silent, but the roaring inside him was so loud. As his wife, Aimée spent the rest of her life exhuming his buried soul. She sang soft lullabies to him in the night when he screamed, chased the dullness from his eyes with patience, and fed him hot onion soup in the evenings when he drank. In the quiet, endless winter nights she warmed her husband's body with her bare skin to calm his incessant shivering. Her skin became softer and softer over the years, ever thinner, even as it burst with emotions and energy and cares. With life itself.
Back in the summer of 1911 I touched Aimée's skin, running my hands down her body from top to toe. She was naked and had just bathed in the Eygues's shimmering turquoise waters as they flowed toward the calm and mighty Rhône. She was beautiful, he...
