Briefly, a Delicious Life
Author: Nell Stevens
Published by: Scribner
Pages: 325
Format: Paperback
My Rating: ★★★★
Published by: Scribner
Pages: 325
Format: Paperback
My Rating: ★★★★
Blanca has been dead for a few centuries when she falls in love – instantly and devotedly – with celebrated novelist George Sand. George is unlike anyone Blanca has encountered in hundreds of years of haunting: a woman dressed in men’s clothes, a ferocious writer, a passionate lover of men and women alike and an ambivalent mother.
It is 1838, and George has come to the island of Mallorca with her ailing lover, Frédéric Chopin. As the weather and the locals turn against this strange couple, can the love of a teenage ghost keep them from disaster?
Briefly, A Delicious Life is a story about breaking convention, and about love; yearning, secret, forbidden, unrequited.
It is 1838, and George has come to the island of Mallorca with her ailing lover, Frédéric Chopin. As the weather and the locals turn against this strange couple, can the love of a teenage ghost keep them from disaster?
Briefly, A Delicious Life is a story about breaking convention, and about love; yearning, secret, forbidden, unrequited.
My thoughts:
Today I finished reading Briefly, A Delicious Life and returned it to Bath Central Library, feeling that lovely, lingering ache you get when a book has quietly worked its way under your skin.
This is a beautifully spooky and mysterious novel, full of joy and sadness, love and loss. It has such an unusual, haunting quality to it - a ghost story, yes, but also a deeply tender exploration of longing, desire, memory and the strange ways we continue to exist in the lives of others.
I loved the yearning and vulnerability that runs through the novel. There is something so delicate and moving about the way Nell Stevens writes about wanting: wanting to be seen, wanting to be loved, wanting a life that feels fuller and freer than the one you have been given. The novel captures that ache so well, without ever feeling overly sentimental.
I also really enjoyed reading more about George Sand, the famous 19th-century French novelist, and her tumultuous romantic life. Sand feels vivid and fascinating on the page: bold, complicated, passionate and entirely herself. The historical elements are woven in beautifully, giving the novel a rich sense of atmosphere without ever making it feel heavy or inaccessible.
What I found most affecting was the way the book holds so many contradictions at once. It is eerie but warm, melancholy but full of life, strange but deeply human. At its heart, Briefly, A Delicious Life is a gorgeous depiction of the human experience; all our love, grief, hunger, loneliness and fleeting moments of beauty.
A haunting, tender and beautifully written novel that stayed with me long after I turned the final page. I loved it.
Overall reaction:
Today I finished reading Briefly, A Delicious Life and returned it to Bath Central Library, feeling that lovely, lingering ache you get when a book has quietly worked its way under your skin.
This is a beautifully spooky and mysterious novel, full of joy and sadness, love and loss. It has such an unusual, haunting quality to it - a ghost story, yes, but also a deeply tender exploration of longing, desire, memory and the strange ways we continue to exist in the lives of others.
I loved the yearning and vulnerability that runs through the novel. There is something so delicate and moving about the way Nell Stevens writes about wanting: wanting to be seen, wanting to be loved, wanting a life that feels fuller and freer than the one you have been given. The novel captures that ache so well, without ever feeling overly sentimental.
I also really enjoyed reading more about George Sand, the famous 19th-century French novelist, and her tumultuous romantic life. Sand feels vivid and fascinating on the page: bold, complicated, passionate and entirely herself. The historical elements are woven in beautifully, giving the novel a rich sense of atmosphere without ever making it feel heavy or inaccessible.
What I found most affecting was the way the book holds so many contradictions at once. It is eerie but warm, melancholy but full of life, strange but deeply human. At its heart, Briefly, A Delicious Life is a gorgeous depiction of the human experience; all our love, grief, hunger, loneliness and fleeting moments of beauty.
A haunting, tender and beautifully written novel that stayed with me long after I turned the final page. I loved it.
Overall reaction:
