Fresh Water for Flowers

By: Valérie Perrin

Narrated by: Sara Young

Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Casual mourners, regular visitors, and sundry colleagues - gravediggers, groundskeepers, and a priest - visit her to warm themselves in her lodge, where laughter, companionship, and occasional tears mix with the coffee she offers them. Her life is lived to the rhythms of their funny, moving confidences.

But her routine is disrupted by the arrival of the local police chief, who insists on scattering the ashes of his recently deceased mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger. Soon it becomes clear that his inexplicable gesture is intertwined with Violette’s own difficult past.

With Fresh Water for Flowers, Valérie Perrin has given listeners an intimately told story that tugs on the heartstrings about a woman who believes obstinately in happiness, despite it all. A number-one best seller in France, it is a heartwarming and tender story that will stay with listeners long after they finish it.

©2020 Valérie Perrin (P)2021 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Almost there

Very pleasant experience. It would have been great if the narrator had mastered French names. In particular the difference between Francois and Francoise. The writer did not mean a gay couple.

I loved all about it!

So much delicacies on writing.
Harsh story with lots of beautiful moments.
Would like to visit those places in reality

Fell flat, good narration.

It started out slow, got better then fell flat. I really didn’t care for it.

Good story, narration not so much

I found the story interesting; I was surprised by the choice to use a narrator with an American accent given that the story is that of a French woman. Also the French accent used for the names and places is very off putting, even to someone who is not a native French speaker. And yet, I enjoyed the story, it kept me engaged.

The Power of Letting Go

Wonderful novel. Would have preferred the narration in English to have been read by a native French person.

Read over listening

I read this book first. This reading does not capture the beauty of this gorgeously written book.

Why not a bilingual narrator?

After 10 years with audible and 300+ audio books, I consider myself can audible fan. This is the first time I’m really disappointed. There for here is my very first review. A beautiful story and well developed characters and I loved everything about the book. Accept every time the narrator had to say a French name or sentence she destroyed it and there was a lot of it in the book. So why not a bilingual narrator? It didn’t have to be perfect French but this was so wrong. A women called Françoise. She pronounced it without the s at the end. Without it, it’s a man’s name. I first thought Luke was gay😂. This is just one example and there were many more. So sorry that a beautiful book got so butchered. I was very unpleasantly surprised by this audio version.

A beautiful book.

The reader was good, I’m sure it was difficult to speak in so many voices, and she did it well. Sometimes her French pronunciation was off.
But the story is absolutely wonderful. A jewel if a book!
I definitely recommend this audiobook!

Beautiful story - narration not so much

Beautiful little story
Narration marred by not being able to pronounce a decent degree of French. As a minimum I would expect well known car brands to be recognised.

Everything I love in One Book

Beautiful, well-written novel! I highly recommend it. I rarely give books five stars. Loooved it.