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Fresh Water for Flowers

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Fresh Water for Flowers

By: Valérie Perrin
Narrated by: Sara Young
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About this listen

Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Casual mourners, regular visitors, and sundry colleagues - gravediggers, groundskeepers, and a priest - visit her to warm themselves in her lodge, where laughter, companionship, and occasional tears mix with the coffee she offers them. Her life is lived to the rhythms of their funny, moving confidences.

But her routine is disrupted by the arrival of the local police chief, who insists on scattering the ashes of his recently deceased mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger. Soon it becomes clear that his inexplicable gesture is intertwined with Violette’s own difficult past.

With Fresh Water for Flowers, Valérie Perrin has given listeners an intimately told story that tugs on the heartstrings about a woman who believes obstinately in happiness, despite it all. A number-one best seller in France, it is a heartwarming and tender story that will stay with listeners long after they finish it.

©2020 Valérie Perrin (P)2021 Dreamscape Media, LLC Contemporary Contemporary Romance Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Romance Women's Fiction Heartfelt Funny

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All stars
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Liked the story but narrator poor pronunciation of French and even some English words which spoilt the listening experience for me.

Very unusual compelling story

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This is a beautiful story of love, loss, life and all the complications and intricacies within them. Loved the characters and the setting. The narration was pretty good but some of the mispronunciations were quite distracting.

Beautiful story, heartbreaking and heart lifting.

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Why not hire someone with at least a working knowledge of French to narrate this book?! Every time the narrator pronounced Alain as Elaine, or Françoise as François (a man’s name), I cringed. Just two of many examples.
This poor casting decision really detracted from a complex and lyrical, if perhaps slightly overlong, novel.

Terrible French accent spoiled things

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American pronunciation of French words was irritating to my English ears. Otherwise a good story.

Accent

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heard of this this from a book club and was initial very engaged but felt the middle of the book lost it's way and I gave up almost... decided to listen to them last few chapters which was sufficient to get some closure... tis done...

struggled to finish

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I would have preferred someone more at home with French pronunciation. Even better would have been a French so speaking narrator.

I loved the gentleness of the story despite its great sadness.

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Dreadful pronunciation of French words by narrator, which I found really irksome and interfered with the flow of the listening experience.

Beautiful descriptive language. Interesting story line.

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A cemetery is an original setting to a story of interactions, love, multiple relationships and intriguing characters. Certainly the book is an opportunity to listen to a modern French novel in translation, describing an environment on an unfamiliar cultural and behavioural canvas, which I enjoyed.
One can view this all kindly and look at the emergence from tragedy and redemption for Violette; she certainly deserves it, or be more ruthless and describe a convoluted and contrived novel attempting to link up too many personalities and wonder that selfish and negative behavior is the origin of all misfortune.
Chapters are preceded by quotes from poetry, mostly of French origin, but I recognised some English; none however were referenced, and I would have preferred to have known.
The narrator is American, who’s pronunciation was sadly inconsistent with hard “t’s” for example, on basics like beret and Peugeot, and probably much more that I didn’t notice and although female voices were adequate, the men were overly alike and not fluent.

This was a random choice with no recommendation other than “new and available”. It wasn’t a best read but books are bricks of experience - no regrets.

…books are bricks of experience- no regrets

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Story started off well but didn't finish it as not captivated enough and at least an hour too long.

Pleasant enough story but dragged on.

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It's a beautiful story but I found it so hard to get into. I can't figure out why- maybe the story was a little disjointed? I think the narrator was probably mismatched to what this story needed.

beautiful story

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