Publisher: 5th July 2023 by HarperCollins Australia
Pages: 336 pages
Genre: contemporary, women’s fiction
Rating: 5 cups
Synopsis:
A remote French island. A crumbling villa. A reclusive film star. And an inheritance Saskia never expected. The stunning new novel from the critically acclaimed author of The Beautiful Words.
Saskia Wyle spent one sultry European summer on �le de Re when she was nineteen. The bright salt flats and sun-soaked beaches are now a distant memory, and one she made herself forget after an unspeakable tragedy.
But the French heiress she befriended over twenty years ago has left half of her magnificent home to Saskia and the other half to Felix Allard, the now-reclusive film star living on the island. How did Simone Durant die? Was it the family curse that haunted her? And why has she included Saskia in her will after all this time?
Saskia returns to the place of dry-stone walls and ancient olive trees to find that Simone has left her another unexpected gift - a manuscript written in French. Like the lyrical language embedded somewhere in Saskia's subconscious, she must find a way to understand what Simone is telling her. As Saskia once again falls under the island's spell, she must reckon with her past to save what is most precious to her.
My Thoughts
Vanessa has crafted another complex story that will sweep readers away to a remote French island with a mystery that resurfaces after a couple of decades. Vanessa has such a way with words that so eloquently draws her readers in, so poetic in her prose that I often lose myself in the eloquence of her words.
‘… there's no use in going back, in remembering.
Besides, is the person you were so long ago really the same person you are now?’
The setting, as you can imagine, is picturesque - old French villas, sweet scented orange trees whilst sipping wine and watching the sunset. The cast of characters is complex with each of them on a journey of some form of discovery. The narrative is told in Saskia’s POV for the present timeline and mostly Simone’s POV for the past.
‘Such a tiny proportion of my life and a time before the internet. A time before the eternal cataloguing of information in the ether. Perhaps that's why it all feels so much like a dream I once had. If there is nothing but our memories, how do we know something existed?’
There are various themes and plots in this tale but at its heart is a mystery that unravels slowly with the impact - both past and present - on the main characters. Vanessa tackles some sensitive issues throughout the story but they are handled with care and compassion. Some suffer from anxiety and questions surrounding medicating this condition are alluded to. She touches on eating disorders and there is a powerful take on emotional abuse in a relationship with a clever capture of what it is to be coercively controlled.
‘She had wondered … convinced herself that this girl never thought about this tiny prism of time in the span of their lives. But now, as time concertinaed, and pressed around her like a bruise, she knew this could not be true … control is life’s ultimate illusion.’
If you have never read any of Vanessa’s books before, I highly recommend you do and Dreaming in French is a great place to start. Immerse yourself not only in a place of sun, salt and sand but also in a well paced mystery from the past that resurfaces in the present. Take a journey with Saskia, Simone and Felix and learn how events played out in a summer of long ago hold ramifications for them and their loved ones in the present day.
This review is based on a complimentary copy from the author in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.
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