Lead Review
- Book: The Heatwave
- Location: Provence
- Author: Kate Riordan
This is bound to be a hit read in the Summer of 2020. It has all the ingredients for an engrossing read: a terrific, slightly dark setting (Provence), a narrative that builds well, and family dynamics as well as couple relationships.
Greg and Sylvie are a couple from different backgrounds and they find themselves settled in Sylvie’s family home – La Rêverie – in Provence. It is an old, rambling building but they are happy enough until their daughter Elodie is born. From early on she is a child with attitude and she seems to have an iron will and a destructive nature for someone so small. Sylvie is at her wit’s end and takes her to see a child psychologist. Greg, however, is unwilling to hear Sylvie’s concerns and upset and their relationship struggles to withstand the challenges facing them.
They go on to have a second daughter, Emma. The story opens in the early 1990s as Sylvie discovers there has been a small fire in their house in Provence (she is now living alone with Emma) and she must speed down there from London, taking Emma with her.
Elodie is no longer on the scene and Emma, on the cusp of becoming a teenager, has little knowledge of the intense difficulties that her family has faced. Soon there is a shock, and mother and daughter have to come to terms with the past and ponder the future.
Raging in the background are the annual fires that often descend on this part of the world and fire becomes a leitmotif in the novel. The author slots in French words and phrases, which serve to enhance the feel of being in this hot and sultry part of the world. Using smatterings of local language is really quite a skill and she does this with aplomb. (We have written previously about the over-use of foreign words and how that can be quite an off-putting experience, read morehere).
One to pick up Summer 2020! Recommended.
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