The book
A Publishers Weekly Most Anticipated Book
Valérie Perrin’s First New Novel since her breakout bestseller Fresh Water for Flowers
“Tata is Perrin’s most ambitious, most intimate, most liberating, most important book yet.”—Le Parisien
When Agnes hears from the local police her Aunt Colette has died, she can’t believe her ears. Her father’s sister Colette, her Tata, died three years ago and has been resting in peace in the cemetery of Gueugnon.
Agnes is called to identify the body: there is no doubt, it’s Aunt Colette. But then, who rests under the stone engraved with Colette’s name? And why did she fake her own death? So begins an investigation back in time, as Agnes pieces together the multitude of stories that lie behind her aunt's second death.
An intricate, compelling web of stories told with irony, delicacy and depth, Tata will keep readers glued to every page.
“Valérie Perrin is a prodigious storyteller.”—Elle
The author
Valérie Perrin
Valérie Perrin was born in 1967 in Remiremont, in the Vosges Mountains, France. She grew up in Burgundy and settled in Paris in 1986. Her novel The Forgotten Sunday (2015) won the Booksellers Choice Award and the paperback edition has been long-selling best-seller since publication. Her English-language debut, Fresh Water for Flowers (Europa, 2020) won the Maison de la Presse Prize, the Paperback Readers Prize, and was named a 2020 ABA Indies Introduce and Indie Next List title. It has been translated into over thirty languages. Figaro Littéraire named Perrin one of the ten best-selling authors in France in 2019, and in Italy, Fresh Water for Flowers was the best selling book of 2020. Perrin now lives in Normandy