In 2013 Gallic Books will have been publishing titles for six years. It’s been an unbelievable journey so far. In those six years we have been part of the publishing trend which has seen the number of books translated into English increase massively; the traditional reader’s resistance to an author with a foreign name seems to have totally disappeared. We have some brilliant books for you this year. Set in the 1980s, the award-winning The President’s Hat by Antoine Laurain is the hilarious story of the mysterious power residing in a hat owned by François Mitterand; Monsieur le Commandant by Romain Slocombe is a chilling tale, masterfully narrated, which casts a spotlight on the collaborators in the French Establishment during World War Two. This year also sees our first venture into biography, the extraordinary Helena Rubinstein: The Woman who Invented Beauty. These are just a few highlights from a list packed with them – enjoy.
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February
Pascal Garnier Translated by: Melanie Florence
A26 The future is on its way to Picardy with the construction of a huge motorway. But nearby is a house where nothing has changed since 1945. Traumatised by events that year, Yolande hasn’t left her home since. And life has not been kinder to Bernard, her brother, who is now in the final months of a terminal illness. Realizing that he has so little time left, Bernard’s gloom suddenly lifts. With no longer anything to lose, he becomes reckless – and murderous…
Praise for Pascal Garnier: ‘Writing that is limpid, precise, even poetic.’ – Le Figaro ‘Action-packed and full of gallows humour.’ – Sunday Telegraph ‘Garnier’s take on the frailty of life has a bracing originality.’ – Sunday Times ‘Bleak, often funny, and never predictable’ – Guardian
The Author: Pascal Garnier is a leading figure in contemporary French literature, in the tradition of Georges Simenon. He lived in a small village in the Ardèche devoting himself to writing and painting. Garnier died in March 2010. Print ISBN: 9781908313164 Format: B-Format paperback Price: £6.99 Category: Fiction e-book ISBN: 9781908313539 Zulma | WEL
Print ISBN: 9781906040240 e-book ISBN: 9781908313232
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Print ISBN: 9781908313034 e-book ISBN: 9781908313300
March
Michèle Fitoussi
Translated by: Kate Bignold & Lakshmi Ramakrishnan Iyer
Helena Rubinstein She understood women. She understood beauty. And she started a revolution. Helena Rubinstein was born into a poor Polish family at the end of the nineteenth century; by the time of her death in 1965 she had built a cosmetics empire that spanned the world. When Rubinstein opened her first salon in Melbourne, her scientific approach to beauty was an instant sensation. Women just couldn’t get enough of her innovative advice on skincare, and her beauty products were constantly sold out. Having conquered Australia, Rubinstein went on to open salons in Europe and America, at a time when women were barely seen in business, let alone running their own multinational companies. Dressed by Chanel and Yves St Laurent, painted by Salvador Dali and Picasso and mingling with Colette and Proust, Helena Rubinstein not only enjoyed unbelievable success, but was also instrumental in empowering and liberating women. Helena Rubinstein was a total original, and her legacy can still be seen today in the methods used to market and manufacture cosmetics. This is her amazing life story.
Praise for Helena Rubinstein:
Print ISBN: 9781908313461 Format: B-Format paperback Price: £8.99 Category: biography e-book ISBN: 9781908313553 Grasset | UK, Europe, Commonwealth (excl Canada, Australia, New Zealand)
‘As flawless as Helena Rubinstein’s skin and as captivating as the Polish-born Jewish beauty magnate’s 70-year reign, this brilliant biography stands as a fascinating history of ‘make-up’.’ – Australian Women’s Weekly ‘This biography recreates the legend behind the businesswoman, which lies at the heart of so many of the quests of important women during the twentieth century.’ – Marie-Claire ‘Required reading’ – Vogue
The Author: Michèle Fitoussi was born in Tunisia. She is a journalist and author.
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April
Antoine Laurain
Translated by: Louise Rogers Lalaurie
The President’s Hat Like Cinderella’s glass slipper or Aladdin’s lamp, the hat is a talisman which makes its wearers’ dreams come true Dining alone in an elegant Parisian brasserie, accountant Daniel Mercier can hardly believe his eyes when President François Mitterand sits down to eat at the table next to him. Daniel’s thrill at being in such close proximity to the most powerful man in the land persists even after the presidential party has gone, which is when he discovers that Mitterand’s black felt hat has been left behind. After a few moments’ soul-searching, Daniel decides to keep the hat as a souvenir of an extraordinary evening. It’s a perfect fit, and as he leaves the restaurant Daniel begins to feel somehow … different.
Praise for The President’s Hat: ‘As entertaining as it is original, this is a story to enjoy like a chocolate with a surprise centre.’ – Marie France ‘An enjoyable trip into the heart of the 1980s’ – Le Figaro ‘Subtle, inventive, absorbing and often funny.’ – L’Avenir ‘Impossible to resist’ – L’Express Winner of the Prix Landerneau Découvertes
The Author: Print ISBN: 9781908313478 Format: B-Format paperback Price: £8.99 Category: fiction e-book ISBN: 9781908313577 Flammarion | WEL
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Antoine Laurain was born in Paris in the early 1970s. He is a writer, collector and director of several short films.
The celebrated black felt homburg, belonging to François Mitterand, is no mere trophy to Daniel Mercier. Talisman-like, it quickly turns the humble salaryman into a smooth corporate strategist. Has Daniel unwittingly discovered the secret of supreme power? For two years the iconic item of headgear plays with the lives of the men and women who wear it, revealing them to themselves and to others in equal measure. Antoine Laurain’s brilliantly orchestrated tour captures entertaining portraits of a rich gallery of characters. The witty fable takes readers on a roller-coaster ride through the heart of French life during the Mitterand years – its hit songs, TV shows, fashions and mores, even its perfumes … Shot through with a delicious, wicked sense of humour, The President’s Hat is a vivid re-creation of the everyday life of an era. In his account of the evening, Daniel allowed himself just one slight alteration – the seafood platter now featured no more than 24 oysters, half a crab and a few winkles. He knew that if he gave the full details of his sumptuous dinner, there was a danger that Véronique would concentrate solely on the cost. Comments such as ‘Well, you certainly look after yourself when we’re not around …’ or ‘I see … dining in solitary splendour!’ would interfere with the re-telling of his adventure. In Daniel’s version of the story, the arrival of the Head of State assumed near-biblical proportions, and the phrase accompanying the oysters – ‘As I said to Helmut Kohl last week’ – rang out like a divine commandment from the cavernous halls of Heaven. ‘Still, I’m shocked.’ ‘Shocked? Why?’ asked Daniel ‘That you stole the hat. It’s not like you.’ ‘I didn’t steal it as such,’ he objected, irritated, although much the same thought had occurred to him as well. ‘Let’s just say I didn’t give it back.’ Véronique seemed to accept that. He managed to convince her that he had, in fact, done the right thing by holding on to the hat, because the moustachioed maître d’hôtel would probably have kept it for himself. Worse, if he hadn’t spotted it, another customer might have taken it, unaware of the identity of the illustrious owner. When they’d finished supper, and Jérôme had gone to bed, they returned to the sitting room. Véronique carefully picked up the hat, and sat stroking it, as if seized by a sudden melancholy. She regretted that Daniel hadn’t been quicker to spot that François Mitterand had left it behind: he could have called after the President, and presented it to him with a smile. ‘There would have been an understanding between you,’ she remarked, sadly. ‘Yes, but he was quite a long way away already,’ Daniel pointed out. He still preferred the real-life version of the story, the one that ended with him wearing the presidential hat on his own head. ****
‘I don’t share your point of view at all, Monsieur Maltard,’ said Daniel, shaking his head. He touched the hat that he’d placed on the conference table in front of him. Jean Maltard, and the ten other members of the Finance Department, summoned to the eleven o’clock meeting, stared at him dumbfounded. Daniel allowed a few moments of silence to pass, a sphinx-like smile playing on his lips, then heard himself refute, point by point, the arguments put forward by the new departmental manager. With unprecedented confidence, he watched himself negotiate the complex layers of diplomacy with the ease of a dolphin leaping through the waves. When he had finished stating his case, a great silence fell upon the room. Bernard Falgou stared at him open-mouthed. Michèle Carnavan ventured a small cough, then, despairing of her spineless male colleagues, spoke out. ‘I think Daniel has summarised our concerns perfectly.’ ‘Brilliantly,’ added Bernard Falgou quickly, as if prodded by a tiny electric shock. Maltard gazed impassively at Daniel. ‘Nice work, Monsieur Mercier,’ he announced icily. Jean-Bernard Desmoine, Head of Finance, had travelled up specially to attend the small gathering, putting the finishing touches to SOGETEC corporation’s new objectives for the Paris-Nord département. He kept his eyes fixed on Daniel throughout his intervention, scribbling just a few notes when the latter explained with perfect clarity, and the figures to back him up, that they could not, in all honesty, split the department into three, but rather into two separate hubs at the very most. ‘Thank you for coming, everyone,’ said Jean-Bernard Desmoine. ‘I’ll let you get back to your desks. I’d like a word, Monsieur Maltard.’ Maltard acquiesced with a meek, insincere smile, then shot a glance at Daniel. Only Bernard Falgou caught the look of cold hatred directed by the new departmental manager at his subordinate. As soon as they had left the conference room, Falgou took Daniel by the arm. ‘You slaughtered him, you slaughtered Maltard!’ he said. 7
May
Guillaume Musso
Translated by: Emily Boyce & Anna Aitken
The Angel’s Call When identical smartphones get swapped by mistake, a chain of events is set off that will change lives forever. By the time total strangers Madeline Green and Jonathan Lempereur realize they’ve got each other’s mobile, they’re on different sides of the Atlantic. And who could resist peeking at the contents of someone else’s phone, especially when it reveals the mysteries in other people’s lives? What caused the sudden collapse of Jonathan Lempereur’s career as world-famous chef? What are the locked files on Madeline’s phone that suggest she’s more than just a Parisian florist?
Praise for Guillaume Musso: ‘The French have brought us berets, baguettes and Beaujolais, and now we can thank them for bestseller Guillaume Musso’ – The Sun ‘Truly a page-turner’ – The French Newspaper ‘Enjoyable escapist fiction’ – Stylist Magazine ‘Quirky confusion of the real and the imaginary’ – Woman and Home
The Author: Guillaume Musso is one of the most popular authors in France today. He was born in 1974 in Antibes where he still lives. To date he has had nine novels published.
Print ISBN: 9781908313041 Format: B-Format paperback Price: £7.99 Category: fiction e-book ISBN: 9781908313591 XO Éditions | Europe & Commonwealth
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Backlist
Where Would I The Girl on Paper be Without You? Translated by: Translated by: Anna Brown and Anna Aitken
Sometimes, a second chance can come out of nowhere… Parisian cop Martin Beaumont has never really got over his first love, Gabrielle. Their brief, intense affair in San Francisco and the pain of her rejection still haunt him years later. Now, however, he’s a successful detective – and tonight he’s going to arrest the legendary art thief, Archibald Maclean, when he raids the Musée d’Orsay for a priceless Van Gogh. But the enigmatic Archibald has other plans. Martin’s pursuit of the master criminal across Paris is the first step in an adventure that will take him back to San Francisco, and to the edge of love and life itself. Print ISBN: 9781906040345 e-book ISBN: 9781906040857
Emily Boyce and Anna Aitken
Just a few months ago, Tom Boyd was a multi-million-selling author living in LA, in love with a world-famous pianist. But after a very public break-up he’s shut himself away, suffering from total writer’s block, with only drink and drugs for company. One night, a beautiful, naked stranger appears in Tom’s house. She claims to be Billie, a character from his novels, who has fallen into the real world because of a printer’s error in his latest book. Crazy as her story sounds, Tom comes to see that this must be the real Billie. And she wants to strike a deal with him: if he writes his next novel she can go back to the world of fiction; in return she will help him win back his beloved Aurore. What does he have to lose? Guillaume Musso’s romantic adventure is a story of friendship, love and the special place that books have in our lives.
Praise for The Girl on Paper: ‘An irresistible tale.’ – Glamour ‘You won’t be able to put the book down for a moment...’ – Cosmopolitan ‘From the very first lines, you’re hooked. And then all resistance is futile.’ – Le Figaro ‘A breath of fresh air, a wake up call that makes you want to take on the world, grab love by the hands and jump into emotion. The ending just surprised me entirely, a well rounded, happy ending with a great creative streak.’ – Female First Print ISBN: 9781906040888 e-book ISBN: 9781908313133 9
June
Anna Gavalda Someone I Loved
Breaking Away
Translated by: Catherine Evans
Translated by: Alison Anderson
How long does it take to forget the smell of someone who loved you? And when do you stop loving them? When Chloé’s husband leaves her and their children for another woman, she is devastated. Unexpectedly, it’s her usually distant father-in-law who comes to Chloé’s aid, both with practical help and his personal wisdom on life and love. In this beautifully crafted novella, Anna Gavalda poignantly explores the fragility of human relationships.
On the car journey to a family wedding, Garance reflects on how adult life, with its disappointments and responsibilities, has not always gone to plan for herself or her three siblings. But just around the corner lies the chance for them to revisit their younger, carefree selves in a delightfully unplanned escapade. The 5th Bestselling French Novel of 2010
The Author: Anna Gavalda is one of the most acclaimed authors writing in French today. Her books are published in over thirty languages.
Print ISBN: 9781908313485 Format: B-Format paperback Price: £7.99 Category: fiction Random House UK | le dilettante UK and Commonwealth 10
Praise for Anna Gavalda: ‘Gavalda’s talent for writing and her gift for dialogue make reading her work a delight’ – World Literature Today ‘Gavalda sees through ordinary appearances to people’s hidden longings… A gifted literary stylist.’ – Vogue Print ISBN: 9781908313614 Format: B-Format paperback Price: £7.99 Category: fiction e-book ISBN: 978-1-908313-09-6 le dilettante | Europe and Commonwealth
August
Pascal Garnier Translated by: Emily Boyce
Moon in a Dead Eye Given the choice, Martial would not have moved to Les Conviviales. But Odette loved the idea of a brand-new retirement village in the south of France. So that was that. At first it feels like a terrible mistake: they’re the only residents and it’s raining non-stop. Then three neighbours arrive, the sun comes out, and life becomes far more interesting and agreeable. Until, that is, some gypsies set up camp just outside their gated community…
Praise for Pascal Garnier: ‘A perfectly balanced cross between a thriller and a social document.’ – L’Express ‘Combines a sense of the surreal with a ruthless wit.’ – Observer ‘The combination of sudden violence, surreal touches and bone-dry humour have led to Garnier’s work being compared with the films of Tarantino and the Coen brothers.’ – Sunday Times
The Author: Pascal Garnier was born in Paris in 1949. The prizewinning author of over sixty books, he remains a leading figure in contemporary French literature, in the tradition of Georges Simenon. He died in 2010.
Print ISBN: 9781908313492 Format: B-Format paperback Price: £6.99 Category: fiction e-book ISBN: 9781908313621 Zulma | WEL
Print ISBN: 9781906040240 e-book ISBN: 9781908313232
Print ISBN: 9781908313034 e-book ISBN: 9781908313300
Print ISBN: 9781908313164 e-book ISBN: 9781908313539
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September
Romain Slocombe Translated by: Jesse Browner
Monsieur Le Commandant French Academician and Nazi sympathiser, Paul-Jean Husson, writes a letter to his local SS officer in the autumn of 1942. Tormented by an illicit passion for Ilse, his German daughter-in-law, Husson has taken a decision that will devastate several lives, including his own. The letter is intended to explain his actions. It is a dramatic, sometimes harrowing, story that begins in the years leading up to the war, when following the accidental drowning of his daughter, Husson’s previously gilded life begins to unravel. And through Husson’s confession, Romain Slocombe gives the reader a startling picture of a man’s journey: from pillar of the French Establishment and World War One hero, to outspoken supporter of Nazi ideology and the Vichy government.
Praise for Monsieur Le Commandant: ‘Probably one of the most significant novels of this year’ – L’Express ‘[Slocombe’s] virtuosity and manner of storytelling reveal true talent ... Go out and buy a copy of Monsieur Le Commandant as soon as you can. Read it; you’ll be glad you did.’ – Le Point ‘The novel is, in a unique way, a powerful piece of Resistance literature.’ – La Vie
The Author: Print ISBN: 9781908313508 Format: B-Format paperback Price: £8.99 Category: fiction e-book ISBN: 9781908313645 Plus Nil Éditions | WEL
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Romain Slocombe is a writer, director, translator, illustrator, cartoonist and photographer. He was born in Paris in 1953. When interviewed recently, Romain explained, ‘It was only as an adult that I discovered that my mother had been concealing her Jewish heritage from her new family her whole married life. I found correspondence from my paternal grandparents that proved that many French people at that time were anti-Semitic. This spurred me on to study the period and its problems in greater depth, and to reflect upon what it might have meant for a French conformist couple to find themselves with a Jewish daughter-in-law.’
So that you might understand the rationale behind this long tale – and behind certain conversations that I shall later have to transcribe in detail, as well as certain violently abject episodes – I must go back in time to 1932, the year when Ilse Wolffsohn entered our lives. When I say “our” lives, I mean mine and those of my wife and two children. You have met Ilse, dear Commandant, having once exchanged a few words with her in French – which she speaks perfectly, as she does English and Italian. I introduced her to you that day as “my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Olivier Husson, ”careful to avoid her Germanic given name. That was last year, after mass one autumn Sunday, I’m sure you recall. But you have never met my son Olivier. I have never spoken of him to you. You well know why. **** Olivier came home to spend a few days in Andigny that summer. He was accompanied by a very young blonde woman with languid, laughing eyes. My son introduced her as a German actress, Elsie Berger, whom he had met at a reception thrown by the French embassy in Berlin. Olivier surprised us by announcing that they were engaged, but that Elsie – her stage name, for her real one was Ilse Wolffsohn – would soon have to return to her country, where, despite her tender age, she had already starred in many films. My son’s ravishing conquest was only nineteen years old! I am trying to reconstruct the confusion of my feelings in those early days. Like Olivier, and then Jeanne, I was undoubtedly smitten. That German girl had – and still has, though to a lesser extent than then – a very particular way of putting one instantly at ease, a voluble warmth, a disarming enthusiasm, and a candour that tempered her remarkable delicacy and sensitivity. On her very first night with us, our guest sat at the piano and played us Schubert Lieder and Bach partitas. My gaze was locked on her shoulders, visible beneath her diaphanous dress and the golden hair bunched at the nape of her neck. **** That she was German bothered me not in the least, even if I had once fought her people – your own, dear Commandant. But remember those early years of the 1930s; Europe had been transformed. Between 1918 and 1930 three empires – the Russian, the German and the Austrian – had been wiped off the map, and eight young States had been born, new hues among the expanded, shrunken or reshaped splashes of colour representing the various powers. Alongside ancient wounds, some only partially healed, the treaties had opened fresh ones. How long could it all hold together? The disintegration of that
fragile edifice would cost Europe another four years of war, hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed, billions upon billions spent, more than ten million killed and thirty million maimed, widowed and orphaned. The colonial policies of England and France to monopolise trade with their colonies represented a serious threat to Germany and Italy. As for the peace treaties, they had in no way enriched Italy, which was poor, and had seriously impoverished Germany, which was rich. If things continued this way, it seemed to me that a new war was inevitable, and sooner rather than later. England, not Germany, is the hereditary enemy of France, as Dunkirk and Mer el-Kebir proved yet again. I saw a Franco-German rapprochement as the only chance for a lasting European peace. **** That autumn, preceded by its steamy reputation, a film featuring Elsie Berger came to our screens. It was the notorious Mädchen in Uniform, the work of filmmaker Léontine Sagan; shot a year earlier, it had enjoyed great success in your country and was honoured to be chosen to represent Germany abroad. It was banned a few years later by the government of Chancellor Hitler – more for its critique of authority, perhaps, than for its Sapphic content. Under some random pretext, I drove myself to Paris to attend a screening at a cinema on the Champs-Elysées. If you have seen these “young girls in uniform”, dear Commandant, you will no doubt remember the storyline, which I recall as if I had seen that all-female production only yesterday. Orphaned at fourteen, Manuela, played by Hertha Thiele, is enrolled at a boarding school run with an iron fist by the sour Fraülein von Nordeck. Although she is welcomed by her classmates, the newcomer keeps to herself at first, until she projects her need for affection onto her literature teacher, Fraülein von Bernburg (played by Dorothea Wieck), the only adult who is sensitive to the feelings of the young boarders. The strong friendship that the orphan feels for her elder takes a deeper turn, restoring her joie de vivre. Following her triumph in a staging of Don Carlos, in which she plays the lead role dressed as a man, she gets drunk and confesses her love for her literature teacher to her dumbfounded classmates. While I appreciated the originality of the story and the talent of the actors, I had eyes only for Elsie Berger, in her all-too-brief appearances as the heroine’s best friend. My son’s fiancée glowed onscreen with a charm comparable to that of her peers, but Ilse’s voice and mannerisms were all her own.
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Backlist
Muriel Barbery
The Elegance of the Hedgehog Moving, life-affirming and utterly original, Muriel Barbery’s novel about Renée the Parisian concierge and closet intellectual has sold over 5 million copies worldwide. ‘Resistance is futile...you might as well buy it before someone recommends it for your book group. Its charm will make you say yes.’ – Guardian ‘Clever, informative and moving...’ – Observer ‘The novel wins over its fans with a life-affirming message, a generous portion of heart and Barbery’s frequently wicked sense of humour.’ – Time Magazine ‘A book of great charm and grace.’ – Metro ‘The book’s attractive, Amélie-esque, Parisian setting and cast of eccentrics will appeal to many...’ – Sunday Telegraph ‘A version of the Cinderella fairytale...’ – Financial Times ‘This breathtakingly singular novel...is totally French yet completely universal.’ – Good Housekeeping Print ISBN: 9781906040185 | £7.99
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The Gourmet In this prize-winning and delicious novel, a dying food critic looks back on the best meals of his life. ‘An exquisite French black comedy.’ – Sunday Times ‘Barbery has a knack for describing food, and for evoking the physical and emotional sensations it produces.’ – Financial Times ‘An ode to the pleasure of good food … mouthwatering from beginning to end.’ – Paris Match ‘It’s a foodie’s delight; just don’t read it when you’re hungry.’ – Daily Mail ‘The exquisite descriptions of eating are like nothing you’ve read before.’ – Good Housekeeping Print ISBN: 97819060403104 | £6.99
Backlist
Hélène Grémillon Translated by: Alison Anderson
The Confidant I got a letter one day, a long letter that wasn’t signed. Camille reads this narration of events from prewar France, certain that it has been sent to her by mistake. Then more letters start to arrive… They tell of a friendship struck up between a young village girl, Annie, and Madame M, a bourgeois lady. To begin with the women simply share a love of art, but when Annie offers to carry a child for her infertile friend, their lives become intimately entwined. The child is born on the eve of the German invasion of France, and the repercussions of her birth are still felt decades later. This powerful first novel by Hélène Grémillon is a gripping study of the destruction unleashed when human desires for love and motherhood turn to obsession.
Praise for The Confidant ‘A book which truly touches our hearts.’ – Elle ‘Serpentine tale of wartime passion and revenge … Direct, unsettling and atmospheric.’ – Deborah Lawrenson, author of The Lantern ‘A gorgeous, captivating novel with brilliant storytelling.’ – Amanda Hodgkinson, author of 22 Britannia Road ‘Beautifully written, original and thoroughly engaging.’ – Sandra Smith, translator of Suite Française Print ISBN: 9781908313294 | £7.99 e-book ISBN: 9781908313515
The Author Hélène Grémillon is a former journalist. This is her first novel.
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Backlist
François Lelord
Hector’s Journeys Hector is a successful young psychiatrist. He’s very good at treating patients in real need of his help. But many people he sees have no health problems: they’re just deeply dissatisfied with their lives. They crave happiness, love and more time. Hector embarks on a series of journeys to find solutions to his patients’ problems. Over two million readers worldwide have engaged with psychiatrist François Lelord’s modern fables. Narrated with deceptive simplicity, his perceptive observations on happiness, love and time offer us the chance to reflect on the contentment we all look for in our own lives. Print ISBN: 9781906040239 | £7.99 e-book ISBN: 9781906040994
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‘Intelligently naïve’ – Marie Claire ‘Even the most aloof, the most detached reader will be won over by [Hector]’ – Cosmopolitan ‘Unexpectedly cheering’ – Independent ‘More Tintin than Freud’ – François Lelord on Hector ‘A cosy story to curl up with’ – Easy Living ‘Provides a dollop of warm, fuzzy, feel good escapism.’ – Woman
Print ISBN: 9781906040338 | £7.99 e-book ISBN: 9781906040437
Print ISBN: 9781906040895 | £7.99 e-book ISBN: 9781908313195
Backlist
Andrea Japp
The Agnès de Souarcy Chronicles 1304. The King of France and the Church are locked in a battle for power that will also decide the fate of the Knights Templar and Hospitaller. In the Normandy countryside, young widow Agnès de Souarcy, the beautiful lady of the manor, is fighting to retain her independent way of life, aware that her spiteful half-brother will do anything to destroy her. These two different worlds collide in the forest near Souarcy, where a terrifying creature begins to kill and mutilate a succession of monks on their way to deliver a secret message of momentous importance. Imprisoned by the Inquisition, Agnès de Souarcy faces interrogation and torture. At the same time, the religious community of Clairets Abbey is shaken to the core when a nun is horrifically poisoned by a murderer hidden in its midst. As events come to a head, will Agnès continue to live simply as a woman of her time or fulfil the role that has been prophesied? Print ISBN: 9781906040109 | £7.99 ebook ISBN: 9781908313324
‘Captivating characters…and vivid descriptions’ – Le Figaro ‘Enthralling, page after page’ – Encre noir ‘The suspense in this novel is exquisitely delivered in rich detail page by page’ – DJ Kirkby
Print ISBN: 9781906040215 | £7.99 ebook ISBN: 9781908313348
Print ISBN: 9781906040192 | £7.99 ebook ISBN: 9781908313362
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Gallic History
Gallic Books, Gallic History French history is so colourful and makes a great backdrop for fiction. Louis XIV and Versailles, Madame de Pompadour, Marie Antoinette, the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Napoleonic Wars all feature in our books, as do Toulouse Lautrec and other writers and artists of fin-de-siècle Paris. Fact and fiction are inextricably linked throughout the books providing a wonderfully entertaining look at France from the seventeenth century onwards. Let’s start in 1661 with The Sun King Rises (Yves Jégo, Denis Lépée). Cardinal Mazarin, the prime minister who has governed throughout Louis XIV’s early years, dies and a fierce power struggle to succeed him develops. A religious brotherhood, guardian of a centuries-old secret also sees its chance to influence events. In a fast-moving story of intrigue, conspiracy and love, fictional Gabriel is in love with reallife Louise de la Vallière, one of Louis XIV’s mistresses. That leads us neatly on to Monsieur Montespan (Jean Teulé). Here we meet the heartbroken husband of Louis XIV’s most flamboyant mistress, Madame de Montespan in a fictionalised account of his ever more bizarre attempts to win his wife back from the King. ‘This wonderful romp through the ballrooms and bedrooms of Louis XIV’s Paris is a real treat.’ Bella ‘I rooted wildly for the brave Marquis in his hopeless stand’ Daily Mail
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We now move forward to the eighteenth century well into the reign of Louis XV whom we meet in the Nicolas Le Floch series of murder investigations (Jean-François Parot). We also meet Madame de Pompadour, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and Sartine, the Paris Chief of Police, perhaps best known for imprisoning the Marquis de Sade. But as well as being taken to the glittering world of Versailles, the reader also encounters the immoral and seamy side of eighteenth-century Paris. And the Revolution approaches … ‘The atmosphere is marvellous, the historical detail precise, and Le Floch and his colleagues are an engaging bunch’ Guardian ‘The third in Jean-François Parot’s delightful series featuring Nicolas Le Floch, a detective in Ancien Régime Paris … the whodunnit enjoyably resembles a blend of Agatha Christie and The Exorcist in 18thcentury costume.’ Sunday Times
A young Corsican, fighting for the French republican cause, becomes bored during a lull in hostilities, and writes a love story. Written in an eloquently Romantic style true to its period, the story offers the reader a fascinating insight into how the young Napoleon viewed love, women and military life. ‘Napoleon, romantic novelist? This stirring tale of passion and war is surely the best love story by a would-be master of Europe.’ Flora Fraser, The Times Napoleon recovers from his boredom, rises through the ranks of the French army and stages a coup d’état in 1799 to become First Consul of France. Five years later he is crowned Emperor of France, and embarks on a series of wars to establish France’s supremacy in Europe.
Passed from pillar to post, ragman to notary, one unimaginable horror to the next, de Monéys endured an extraordinary demise. He was tortured to the bounds of human endurance and then, as he still clung to life, a bonfire was hastily built and he was burnt alive. Insanity, of course, but what has given the de Monéy’s affair a particularly ghoulish place in the annals of French history is what happened next. The crowd took his burning fat, an awful kind of human dripping, spread it on hunks of bread and ate him like a party canapé. One reveller crunched on his steaming testicles.’ Christian House, Independent The last stop on the historical tour is Paris where we spend the years 1889 (the year the Eiffel Tower was built) to 1894. Here the reader is in the company of Victor Legris, amateur sleuth and Left-Bank bookseller, his Russian émigrée artist girlfriend, Tasha, his aspiringauthor assistant Joseph, and his business associate, Kenji.
Author Armand Cabasson has used the Napoleonic Wars as the backdrop for his hero Quentin Margont to investigate a series of murders in Napoleonic ranks. ‘Cabasson skilfully weaves an intriguing mystery into a rich historical background ’ Mail on Sunday ‘With vivid scenes of battle and military life ... Cabasson’s atmospheric novel makes a splendid war epic’ Sunday Telegraph We travel next to 1870 for another drama from the pen of ‘Marais’s merry messenger of death’ Jean Teulé. ‘Eat Him If You Like, which tells the true story of Hautefaye, is set over one day of collective madness in the sauna-hot summer of 1870. France was at war with Prussia and the rural inhabitants of the small Dordogne commune were getting twitchy. When Alain de Monéys, a respected local landowner, rode in to the teeming Hautefaye fair he was unprepared for his fate. A slip of the tongue about France’s chances and the drunken crowd turned on him. His neighbours became anarchists in their Sunday best.
In solving a series of Parisian murders, Victor Legris encounters the artists and writers of the belle époque as well as the artisans of the sixth and seventh arrondissements. ‘Full of pungent period detail’ Observer ‘Claude Izner... brilliantly evokes 1890s Paris... in a cracking, highly satisfying yarn.’ Guardian ‘A charming journey through the life and intellectual times of an era’ Le Monde
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Noir
French Noir
With translated crime fiction and brooding European police dramas enjoying a sustained post-Larsson boom, noir may just be the new black. Despite the name, the origins of the noir genre are largely rooted in the American hardboiled fiction of the ‘30s and ‘40s. When French publisher, Gallimard, founded its famous Série Noire imprint in 1944, it focused on translations of thrillers by the likes of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The number of French writers on the list grew, but the influence of the US remained strong; many home-grown authors translated American novels alongside their own work, or wrote under American-sounding pseudonyms. The US is still a source of fascination for many French crime writers, including our own Maxime Chattam (pen name of Maxime Drouot), one of France’s top ten bestselling authors. His short, shocking story of a spate of New York high school massacres, Carnage, is published by Gallic. There’s an overlap with cinema in the work of many French noir writers. The movie adaptation of Bitter Lemon Press title, Badfellas, by novelist and screenwriter Tonino Benacquista, is set to star none other than Robert de Niro. The story transports a Sopranos-esque American crime family to a witness protection programme in Normandy, cleverly tying together the tropes of the genre with an unconventional setting. Benacquista’s darkly comic observations of crime in everyday, unglamorous settings (far from the smoky LA nightclubs we’re used to seeing) have much in common with one of our own noir writers, Pascal Garnier.
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Garnier’s plots may revolve around hitmen and road trips, but the settings are supermarkets, service stations and campsites in provincial France, the cultural references decidedly Gallic. Like Benacquista, Garnier drops his criminal protagonists (charming sociopaths in the Ripley vein) into unfamiliar places, outsiders looking in. In How’s the Pain? ‘vermin exterminator’ Simon breaks his journey in the spa town of Vals-les-Bains, where he meets Bernard, the naive young drifter who becomes his accidental accomplice. We see the town and its people through Simon’s ironic gaze. The cast of unremarkable characters are plunged into extraordinary situations, whose incongruity can be very amusing. It’s this shifting tone, conveyed with beautifully paredback prose, that’s Garnier’s hallmark. With its stark violence and tendency towards the surreal, his writing has echoes of Tarantino or the black comedy of the Coen brothers. You often don’t know whether to laugh or cry, leading some to label his brand of noir the roman gris, with touches of brightness lightening the grim outlook. With the likes of Fred Vargas and Dominique Manotti regularly fêted at the CWA International Dagger Awards, French noir writers are taking centre stage. While prolific Belgian writer, Georges Simenon remains the bestknown Francophone exponent of noir (and provided its most famous detective character in Maigret), his literary inheritors are proving it’s not just the Scandinavians who can do dark.
Gallic Life
Gallic Life Food, love and philosophy: three ingredients so integral to French life they could be the mottos of the tricolour flag. And while they may be at the heart of our clichéd view of France as embodied by Serge Gainsbourg and Gauloises, Sartre and de Beauvoir, du pain, du vin and du Boursin, contemporary French writers are approaching these timeworn themes in new, original ways. London-based French teacher Jocelyne Rapinac’s first published story collection, Freedom Fries and Café Crème, brings together characters from both sides of the Atlantic and explores their attitudes to food and relationships. While traditional French cuisine is celebrated (the accompanying recipes include classics such as pain d’épices and rustic terrines), it is with an awareness that food culture is changing in France as elsewhere – something Anna Sam’s witty memoir of life behind a supermarket till, Checkout, also underlines. Her tales of encounters with every kind of customer, from the bizarre to the downright rude, are a long way from the idealised image of food shopping in France. ‘The checkout girls of Europe have found a figurehead. Her name is Anna Sam’ The Times In Rapinac’s story, A Delicious Destination, a globetrotting American character never goes back to Paris after his favourite authentic Montmartre cafe is taken over by a coffee shop chain, while another chapter sees a Frenchwoman return to her native Burgundy to find the kids tucking in to microwave meals just as they do in the States. We’re treated to a taste of a convivial restaurant in the rural south of France (with tempting recipes for the house specialities attached), where the food is so good and the waitress so enchanting that American student, Matt, has to order two of everything to prolong the experience. Yet the outcome is bittersweet, as the realities of long-distance, cross-cultural relationships become clear. ‘A charming and innovative book that will stimulate the taste buds as well as the mind’ New Books
Anna Gavalda is similarly interested in getting to the root of relationships. Her first novel for Gallic, Breaking Away, focuses on sibling ties, as four grown-up brothers and sisters on a car journey to a family wedding escape from the confines of daily life for a brief return to their carefree childhood. It is not only the romantic notion of l’amour that fascinates Gavalda, but the bonds within families and between friends. She has an ear for natural dialogue (which her translators, Alison Anderson and Catherine Evans, have succeeded in echoing in English) and her latest novel, Someone I Loved, is like listening in on a conversation between the protagonist, Chloé, and her ex-father-in-law, as she comes to terms with the breakup of her marriage. It is poignant, but also tender and funny, as the two characters open up to each other during late-night banter, and infidelity is explored from both sides. Infidelity is also a theme of authorpsychiatrist François Lelord’s Hector and the Secrets of Love. The second in his series of Hector’s Journeys (the first of which sees the eponymous psychiatrist searching for the root of happiness, the third for the meaning of time), the story takes our Candide-like hero around the world on the trail of a nutty professor who holds the secret of a love potion. Though the nuggets of wisdom Hector picks up along the way are universal, and Lelord avoids reference to France by name (indeed, the upcoming film adaptation starring Simon Pegg easily relocates Hector to London), the combination of love, humour and psychological insight has an undeniably French flavour, perhaps especially in its honesty about infidelity. Naive he may be, but that doesn’t stop Hector straying, in spite of several of his ‘seedlings’ of thoughts on love being linked to faithfulness: “Love is resisting temptation”;
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“True love is not wanting to be unfaithful”; “True love is not being unfaithful (even when you want to be)”. Lelord addresses psychological and philosophical issues (how to be happy – and what is happiness?; how to cope with the passing of time – and what is time?) in a lighthearted, charming way, purposefully simplifying them for his modern-day fable: “Heidegger (little moustache), Sartre (big round glasses). Philosophy is all well and good, but it’s a little like maths: you need to work at it every day to appreciate it. And take up German.” In a similar way, Jean Teulé’s jet-black comedy The Suicide Shop confronts attitudes to death and happiness through a deceptively simple story set in a dystopian future where everyone is miserable and the Tuvache family make their living from selling ways to die. Until, that is, their youngest son comes along to challenge their morbid existence with his boundless optimism and love of life. ‘The short scenes and casual zaniness of this gently comic fable, a great success in France, suggest a superior bande dessinée’ Financial Times Writers for a mass-market readership in France do not shy away from philosophical concerns. Guillaume Musso’s novels, Where Would I Be Without You? and The Girl on Paper are rollicking stories, combining elements of thriller, romance and the supernatural, but they touch on deeper issues. The narrator of The Girl on Paper, Tom Boyd, is an author whose character, Billie, has fallen into the real world after a printer’s error. Searching for a way to send her back to the world of fiction, he reaches for the words of Voltaire:
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“The most useful books are those of which readers themselves compose half.”A book only comes alive when it is read, and the same goes for Billie. Muriel Barbery’s internationally acclaimed novel, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, was described by The Observer as “profound but accessible”, combining philosophical ideas with an intriguing, uplifting narrative. The story of a Parisian concierge, Renée, and Paloma, the precocious child of one of her bourgeois employers, it challenges the class prejudices of French society. Renée keeps her love of culture and learning hidden from the building’s inhabitants, who would struggle to reconcile it with her social standing: “How could the labouring classes understand Marx?” When a newcomer, Kakuro Ozu, moves in to the building, her secret is under threat, though he will open her eyes to new possibilities. The apartment Ozu takes up residence in had been occupied by Pierre Arthens, who is also the protagonist of Barbery’s first novel, The Gourmet. In this book, the self-declared “greatest food critic in the world” lies on his deathbed tormented not by the way he has lived his life – distant from his children, ruthless in pursuit of success – but in search of “a flavour that has been teasing my taste buds and my heart and I simply cannot recall it”. He recollects his earliest food experiences and meals prepared by great chefs, with mouth-watering descriptions of grilled sardines and sublime orange sorbets, but when he finally puts his finger on the elusive taste, it’s not what one might have expected...
Title
Author
Print e-book
A26 Angel’s Call Baker Street Phantom Baker’s Blood Breaking Away Breath of the Rose Carnage Châtelet Apprentice Checkout Clisson & Eugénie Confidant Divine Blood Dream Killer of Paris Eat Him if you Like Elegance of the Hedgehog Freedom Fries and Café Crème Girl on Paper Gourmet Hector & the Search for Happiness Hector and the Secrets of Love Hector Finds Time Helena Rubinstein How’s the Pain? Man with the Lead Stomach Marais Assassin Memory of Flames Monsieur Le Commandant Monsieur Montespan Montmartre Investigation Moon in a Dead Eye Murder on the Eiffel Tower Nicolas le Floch Affair Officer’s Prey Panda Theory Père-Lachaise Mystery Phantom of the Rue Royal Predator of Batignolles President’s Hat Saint-Florentin Murders Season of the Beast Someone I Loved
Pascal Garnier Guillaume Musso Fabrice Bourland Jean-François Parot Anna Gavalda Andrea H. Japp Maxime Chattam Jean-François Parot Anna Sam Napoleon Bonaparte Hélène Grémillon Andrea H. Japp Fabrice Bourland Jean Teulé Muriel Barbery Jocelyne Rapinac Guillaume Musso Muriel Barbery François Lelord François Lelord François Lelord Michèle Fitoussi Pascal Garnier Jean-François Parot Claude Izner Armand Cabasson Romain Slocombe Jean Teulé Claude Izner Pascal Garnier Claude Izner Jean-François Parot Armand Cabasson Pascal Garnier Claude Izner Jean-François Parot Claude Izner Antoine Laurain Jean-François Parot Andrea H. Japp Anna Gavalda
9781908313164 9781908313041 9781906040284 9781906040369 9781908313614 9781906040215 9781906040413 9781906040062 9781906040291 9781906040277 9781908313294 9781906040192 9781906040321 9781906040390 9781906040185 9781908313003 9781906040888 9781906040314 9781906040239 9781906040338 9781906040895 9781908313461 9781908313034 9781906040123 9781906040147 9781906040840 9781908313508 9781906040307 9781906040055 9781908313492 9781906040017 9781906040222 9781906040826 9781906040420 9781906040048 9781906040154 9781906040253 9781908313478 9781906040246 9781906040109 9781908313485
Strangled in Paris Suicide Shop Sun King Rises Where Would I Be Without You? Wolf Hunt
Claude Izner Jean Teulé Yves Jégo and Denis Lépée Guillaume Musso Armand Cabasson
9781906040376 9781906040093 9781906040024 9781906040345 9781906040833
9781908313539 9781908313591 9781908313423 9781908313270 9781908313096 9781908313348 9781908313218 9781906040468 9781906040932 9781906040611 9781908313515 9781908313362 9781908313447 9781908313171 9781908313256 9781908313133 9781906040994 9781906040437 9781908313195 9781908313553 9781908313300 9781906040499 9781906040734 9781908313409 9781908313645 9781906040796 9781906040703 9781908313621 9781906040642 9781906040550 9781908313065 9781908313232 9781906040673 9781906040529 9781906040765 9781908313577 9781906040581 9781908313324 9781906040741 9781906040901 9781906040857 9781908313386
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