Translated from the French by Hildegard Serle (who also translated other books by this author and Mona’s Eyes)

Agnes, a filmmaker in France, gets a call one day that her beloved Aunt Colette has died, which is impossible because Agnes attended her Aunt’s funeral three years before. She returns to the French provinces where she visited her aunt every Summer when she was a child, to find out whose body this is and what’s going on. There she uncovers family secrets and the life her aunt lived that she knew nothing about.

Tata means Auntie in French, and the story is partly a mystery, partly a family saga, and full of the strength and bonds of women. It takes us from the present day, and back into the past, into the previous two generations of Agnes family.

Valerie Perrin is the author of the best-selling Fresh Water For Flowers and lives in Normandy.

Tata is a wonderful novel and one I haven’t seen a lot of people reviewing and talking about this year. It’s a longer story, at over 500 pages, which is why I’m a little delayed in reviewing it myself, but it’s got lots of short chapters and it flows really well so it doesn’t feel long. It’s so winding and full of lots of characters that every chapter brings something new, some new twist, that it’s length feels perfect. It made me want to read more by Valerie Perrin.

It opens very mysteriously with Agnes getting the news that her aunt has been found dead, and a central mystery of this story is how and why this could be. The answer involves the story of Colette’s life, one of those unassuming and hard working women who is often overlooked. I loved seeing her story come to life. The answer also involves a circus, a murderer, family secrets, love affairs, family shame, and football. In order to tell the story, we have to know Agnes life, and how her investigation leads her home to her childhood friends, and their lives. And we have to understand her family, her relationship with her daughter, ex husband, her career. The story is told a bit mysteriously, with lots of twists and turns. We know that Agnes parents are dead, but we have to wait to learn how they died, and we have to learn who knew what and why they agreed to cover some things up. As we learn Colette’s family story, we need to find out what happened to the Senechal family who lived near her, how Jean and Colette move away from their roots and build a new life. With each layer uncovered, we meet new people who fit into the story, and we get more layers of the mystery of how their lives all fit together and what’s going on. It’s almost like a soap opera in a way, with all these dramatic moving parts, and yet it’s also much more grounded and emotive rather than emotional or melodramatic.

This one is riveting literary fiction, and I recommend it. It has a lot of characters and twists and turns along the way, with strong women at the heart of the story. I loved how Agnes slowly found a new way back to herself and her creative expression, and I loved how Colette’s story played out and fed into Agnes life, and all the layers of the story. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Read It If: you like French stories, if you love strong women and if you like a family mystery. This one is juicy and layered, and wonderful to sink into.

With thanks to PGC Books for the copy of this book for review.