Briefly, a Delicious Life

by Nell Stevens

A playful and daring tale about a teenage ghost who falls in love with the writer George Sand.

In 1473, fourteen-year-old Blanca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly four hundred years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Blanca is still there: a spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she’s been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and the townspeople and keeping track of her descendants.

Blanca is enchanted the moment she sees George, and the magical novel unfolds as a story of deeply felt, unrequited longing—a teenage ghost pining for a woman who can’t see her and doesn’t know she exists. As George and Chopin, who wear their unconventionality, in George’s case, literally on their sleeves, find themselves in deepening trouble with the provincial, 19th-century villagers, Blanca watches helplessly and reflects on the circumstances of her own death (which involved an ill-advised love affair with a monk-in-training).

Charming, original, and emotionally moving -- gorgeous and surprising exploration of artistry, desire, and life after death.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Historical, Fantasy, Lesbian

323 pages, Paperback

First published July 19, 2022

About the author

Nell Stevens writes memoir and fiction. She is the author of Bleaker House and Mrs Gaskell & Me (UK) / The Victorian & the Romantic (US/CAN), which won the 2019 Somerset Maugham Award. She was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award, 2018. Her writing is published in The New York Times, Vogue, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Granta and elsewhere. Nell is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Warwick.

Reviews

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus)]

a sad sapphic ghost love story? book, you have my undivided attention.

[Lotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5 I need more books narrated by horny bisexual ghosts in my life

[fatma · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a deeply underwhelming book.

First, the positives, and I really only have one: the writing. The writing in Briefly, A Delicious Life is pretty good. It evokes the novel's setting--Mallorca--well, with some nice occasional descriptive flourishes during the more key scenes (particularly the ones involving Chopin's music). The writing was never something I had an issue with. No, what I had an issue with was pretty much everything else.

Ever since I finished this novel, I've been trying to put my finger on why it felt so utterly underwhelming to me. Briefly, A Delicious Life is a novel that should, by all accounts, be good; it has so much potential. A centuries-year-old ghost of a girl, a musician, a writer, two children, Mallorca, and a sapphic love story--everything about that appealed to me. And yet none of it comes together to form a story that is in any way rewarding or gratifying to read.

The basic problem of this novel as far as I've been able to narrow it down is that its narrative never feels like it's moving towards anything in particular; it just flits from scene to scene, from character to character. And it's not that those scenes or characters are egregiously bad, but that they never fit into any kind of larger picture or purpose. Where a more interesting and dynamic novel will have highs and lows--some sort of climatic moment, even if it doesn't follow a traditional three-act structure--here we have a series of plot progressions that are less "progressions" and more "things that happen." We follow George as she goes to the market; Blanca as she recounts her past; the children as they explore Mallorca; Chopin as he tries to compose music. And throughout all of this you're thinking "ok, what's the point? where are we headed here?" So you keep reading, hoping that we're going somewhere, except the catch is we're not really going anywhere. To put it more plainly, then: this book feels like it has no narrative arc, nothing you can point to and say "that was a real turning point in the novel" or "that was an important moment in the plot's trajectory." That's not to say that the things that happen in the book don't matter, but rather that the book is lacking a fundamental sense of narrative direction, and because of that it never feels like there are any real stakes for these characters, or indeed any tension that would lend the story a sense of propulsion.

Okay, so the plot is meandering, to put it nicely. I've been known to enjoy the occasional slice-of-life story--what about the characters? Maybe they make up for what the narrative falls short of? Alas, here, too, Briefly, A Delicious Life disappoints. I've given this proper thought, and I genuinely think there is no character development in this novel. Bold claim, I know, but I really do believe it. the circumstances the characters find themselves in change over the course of the novel, but the characters themselves are pretty much the same from start to finish. And really, this issue is part and parcel with the lack-of-narrative-arc issue. Just as there is no sense of a distinct narrative arc, there is no sense of a distinct character arc, either. And again, these characters are not bad per se; they are each (at least theoretically) interesting in their own ways, but they never undergo the kind of development that would make you invested in their stories.

Having laid out all my issues with A Briefly, A Delicious Life, I think its fundamental lack of dynamic narrative and character arcs stems from the fact that it's a novel based on real historical events. Aside from Blanca the ghost, there is a clear historical foundation for many, if not most, of the scenes in this book: Chopin's music pieces, Sand's writing and affairs, the family's stay in Mallorca, the antipathy they encountered there. I'm not at all familiar with these events, but I think what happened here is that the history took precedence over the actual narrative of the book. And so what we got was an embellished and stylized version of these real life figures' histories rather than an actual engaging story about them. (And there are so many novels that have done an incredible job retelling historical figures' stories, Little by Edward Carey being a chief example.)

(I will also say that the whole "sapphic love story" aspect of this is barely in the novel, so I wouldn't get your hopes up about that.) (Oh, and the ending was so clumsy and anticlimactic; it felt like it undermined what was already a very shaky story to begin with.)

Can I absolutely discount this novel as Bad? No, but that's precisely the problem. It's not that there's nothing redeemable about Briefly, A Delicious Life, but rather that it never does anything with its redeemable parts. It has so much potential, and yet it simply does not deliver on that potential--a fact which, for me, made it all the more disappointing in the end.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for providing me with an e-ARC of this via Edelweiss.

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nell Stevens’s debut novel combines fictionalised biography with an unusual variation on a ghost story. It revolves around an episode in the lives of controversial writer George Sand (Aurore Dupin) and composer Frédéric Chopin. When Sand and Chopin became lovers, he was already showing signs of the tuberculosis that would eventually destroy his health, so in 1838, the couple travelled to a remote area of Mallorca, Valldemossa, in the belief that sun and fresh air would aid Chopin’s recovery. So, they set off with Sand’s two children in tow. Their stay was an unmitigated disaster, Sand’s habit of dressing in men’s attire, together with the news that the couple weren't married was viewed as scandalous by the deeply conservative, Catholic locals, and this hostility intensified once it became clear that Chopin was harbouring a deadly infectious disease. No standard lodging house would accept their custom and they were forced to rent barely-habitable cells in a former monastery The Charterhouse. They were routinely ripped off by the locals, The Charterhouse was damp, and the climate hideously cold and stormy. Sand later documented her version of this prolonged holiday/abortive “honeymoon” in Un hiver à Majorque.

In Steven’s version of the couple’s experiences in Mallorca, their stay’s presented from the perspective of Blanca, a centuries-old spirit of a teenage girl who died in childbirth, who lusts after Sand. Stevens intersperses Blanca’s account of the visitors’ experiences with flashbacks that reveal Blanca’s past, the idea presumably to compare and contrast shifts and commonalities in women’s interactions with male-dominated society. Blanca’s outspoken, feisty, and her language rather breathily, disconcertingly modern, I liked the concept behind her creation, but I was far less certain about its execution. For much of the novel, Blanca felt more like plot device than character, she has the convenient ability to see inside people’s minds, to access their memories and divine their futures. This allows Stevens to present a kind of potted biography of George Sand, her previous marriage, her beginnings as a writer, and to flashforward to the future breakdown of her relationship with Chopin, and the quarrel over Sand’s daughter Solange that led to their final parting. Sand’s the key figure here, Chopin more backdrop, and her life history’s fascinating enough that I wondered why Stevens didn’t simply focus on a retelling of that, rather than this more elaborate take. As the narrative progressed, I felt that the sections focused on Sand and those on Blanca seemed increasingly at odds. The two just didn’t come together for me, resulting in a slightly awkward, uneven concoction. Stevens’s style’s equally unsteady, some wonderful images, and more accomplished, promising passages vie with less successful sections, although that’s not unexpected in a first novel. It’s well researched and, from what I know, pretty faithful to the facts of Sand’s life so it's a reasonable enough introduction to that, but overall, this wasn’t quite the enjoyable Sapphic literary diversion I’d hoped for.

Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Scribner for an ARC

Rating: 2.5/3

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a book. Bizarre, heartfelt, powerful, uplifting and incredible. I loved it. I'd give it six stars and more if I could.

[Léa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 STARS!

This was haunting, melancholic and so so beautiful. Following a 14 year old ghost who develops a tender obsession and fascination with novelist George Sand, this was superb. The dual timeline between Blanca observing George's mundane everyday routine paired with Blanca's past and the lead up to her death ~ Nell Stevens perfectly developed these characters and I couldn't help but fall in love with her narrative. HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend!

[Alexis Hall]

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: none
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.

Further disclaimer: Readers, please stop accusing me of trying to take down “my competition” because I wrote a review you didn’t like. This is complete nonsense. Firstly, writing isn’t a competitive sport. Secondly, I only publish reviews of books in the subgenre where I’m best known (queer romcom) if they’re glowing. And finally: taking time out of my life to read an entire book, then write a detailed review about it that some people on GR will look at would be a profoundly inefficient and ineffective way to damage the careers of other authors. If you can’t credit me with simply being a person who loves books and likes talking about them, at least credit me with enough common sense to be a better villain.

*******************************************

Never fall for men of artistic genius. They always end up boning down on your daughter.

In any case, this book is intriguing, but it had the problem you always get around the fictionalisation of real-life events—which is that life rarely offer satisfying conclusions. It just kinds of ends, and if you’re lucky something vaguely sensical can be shuffled from the leftovers.

Briefly, A Delicious Life, then, is a fictionalisation of the Withnail & I-esque holiday/honeymoon George Sand and Chopin attempted to take in Mallorca, and it’s narrated by the ghost of a 16th century girl who is haunting the rundown monastery where George and Chopin are staying. Blanca, our narrator, is in love with George, George and Chopin are, of course, in love with each other (for the moment), they’re also in love with art, and then there’s George’s two children to contend with. Add in Chopin’s whole dying-of-tuberculosis deal, the terrible weather, hostility from the Catholic locals who initially exploit and then attack the family and, well, it’s quite a story.

Although it’s a story that doesn’t … go anywhere. Or rather, it’s a story that ends with George and Chopin continuing with their lives because, well, see above re the problem of writing about real people. The book is, however, a fascinating character piece. I can’t really attest to its accuracy but given Chopin is kind of a pill and George is completely compelling I was personally convinced. Having Blanca for a narrator manages to give the book both a sense of intimacy and sense of expansiveness: she is able to directly access people’s thoughts, along with moments from their past and the full tapestry of their future. To some degree she is a little bit of a device, in that it means the book is never tied to a single time, place or POV, but her voice is incredibly engaging and her own small piece of history heartbreakingly banal—a necessary contrast to this story of grand passion between two extraordinary artists that has passed into legend.

I will also note that—unlike some mainstream reviewers—I appreciated the modernity of Blanca’s narration. The book is actually beautifully written: there’s a precision to the language that allows it to convey sensuality, bitterness, suffering, love absurdity, all with equal finesse.

Chopin began to play. It was something he had begun working on in previous days: a dappled sunlight opening, a break in the clouds, a tentative ray touching the horizon. But the A-flat was running through it now, at first barely noticeable beneath the right hand’s melody, and then louder, increasingly insistent. It became the saddest sound I had ever heard: perhaps you are happy, the music said, and the A-flat, but what about this – this – this. I understood by then that Chopin’s music was the best of him. It was where his loveliness resided. All his better impulses, his tenderness and sadness were there, in safekeeping away from his body, unhampered by the sharp edges of pain and illness, crankiness and frustration and irritability.

I honestly do know what is up with people that they’ll be, like, okay, 16th century ghost, and she's gay for George Sand seems legit, wait “tasked” has been used as a verb, THAT IS A BRIDGE TOO FAR.

Anyway, as you probably already tell, while the book is broadly a ghost story centred on a moment in the lives of two historical figures it has a lot to say about art, and love, and gender, and queerness. I was honestly ready to murder Chopin myself by the half way point. He’s not overtly terrible, really, but he has this absolute and unquestioned entitlement to both art and being cared for, whereas George stays awake deep into the night, because it’s the only time she can get for her own writing, and her own self-care, really. I mean, obviously, Chopin is terminally ill and (assuming we’re not still pretending that Chopin, the man who wrote sexy letters to other men, was definitely definitely uncontrovertibly straight in every way) queer, but there’s still this impossibly huge gulf between the way his music—his need for sex, attention, goat milk, the perfect piano—dominates the text, whereas George’s writing must always be tucked into the spaces around Chopin, motherhood, her other lovers, a need to support her family, and her place in society.

I did feel, perhaps, the book didn’t entirely know how to end itself or what to do with Blanca once she’d told her story (it’s certainly not a text interested in what it means that it has a ghost in it, which—honestly—is fair enough). Or perhaps it was just that the emotional intensity had reached such pitch, with Chopin finally able to piano and yet also about to die maybe and angry Catholics descending on the monastery, that a vague sense of anti-climax was inevitable. After all, as I pointed out in the opening of this review, that’s kind of the problem with life as a whole.

Still, an unusual and exquisitely told story that has done nothing to subdue my long-standing crush on George Sand.

[Jenny Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a weird (but in a nice way) and experimental sort of historical fiction/magical realism novel. Dreamlike, but a little meandering. 3.5 stars

[Ángela Arcade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disfruté mucho adentrarme en la historia de George Sand y Chopin a través de los ojos de Blanca; esta peculiar narradora testigo que, al ser una fantasma, es una especie de ser omnisciente que supera los límites de un narrador común. El hecho de que tengamos, además, su historia y su perspectiva sobre la muerte y sobre la vida, hizo de este libro un viaje memorable. Me fascinó la forma de escribir de la autora, la voz que le dio a Blanca para contar este relato intimista sobre identidad, valentía, incertidumbre y música, de una forma cruda y poética a la vez.

[emma]

all we can hope for really

[casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

sits between a 3/3.5 for me. i don’t think the blurb for this book services the story well honestly, i went in expecting something wayyy different lol. was still good though, there are touching moments and i always find myself enjoying the themes that pop up in stories centered around ghosts, but i wouldn’t go into this expecting it to be as “sapphic and yearn heavy” as it’s marketed. despite it being pretty short i also felt like it could have been a bit leaner in some areas to avoid dragging.

[Brandice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Briefly, A Delicious Life is the story of Blanca, a ghost who died young and stays close to a small village in Mallorca where she lived. ⁣Blanca has seen people come and go, live and die, but never has she has such a fascination as she does with George, a woman who dresses like a man and recently arrived at the former monastery with her boyfriend, Chopin, and her two children, Solange and Maurice. ⁣
⁣
Blanca finds herself intrigued by George breaking convention, drawn to the woman, and curious to learn more. While she tries to figure George out, Blanca reflects on her own memories of life before she died and how her young death came to be. ⁣
⁣
This book was different — The premise was original and it had a theme of creativity, in both obvious and subtle ways. I wasn’t always sure where the story was headed though it continued to hold my interest.

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so intruiged by the blurb, cover and the title and really thought I would enjoy it a lot more. The audiobook wasn't bad but the story didn't quite compel me as I had hoped. Might have been a different reading experience if I had read it in a physical version. Might try that in some other time but for now it get 3 stars 3.5'stars

[Irmak ☾ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“…and people who fall in love easily are easy to fall in love with. What a thing it is, to fall in love, to want to know everything there is to know about a person and yet, at the same time, to find the smallest detail - a blade of loose skin peeling from the lower corner of the fingernail - entirely overwhelming, too lovely to bear.”

4.5 stars.

holy hell. what a story, filled to the brim with yearning and desire. the writing sucks you in almost immediately, and the story is really interesting. Blanca was such a great narrator. I just wish we were given more information about her life, it would’ve provided more depth to her.

[Mia Guzzo]

Briefly, A Delicious Life, written by Nell Stevens, breaks all boundaries inside and out. With a daring one-sided love story between a long-dead ghost and an androgynous female writer named George who breaks the monotony of a stagnant town-- this novel is unlike anything you have read before.

Told through the eyes of a young girl who died in Mallorca generations ago, Briefly, A Delicious Life follows Blanca who now stays in her town as a ghost. For four hundred years she has been living in a confusing existence between life and death with the same families but different people. That is until, foreigners come to live in her hometown. Specifically, a foreign woman named George who dresses up as a man and lives with her lover and children had out of marriage. Blance falls in love with the stereotype-breaking George while also watching over and protecting George’s lover, Chopin, and her two children, Maurice and Solange.

This book was captivating to put it simply. There was something so grounded, relatable, and human unlike anything I’ve read within this story, even though it is centered around a ghost. It’s perceived by most as a romance book, which it is, but that doesn’t encapsulate enough that this story is about love in all its complex forms-- like love, loss, grief, yearning, and all that makes us human.

Showing a sapphic romance in this one-sided way is such a beautiful metaphor for repression and wanting what one cannot have. All Blanca is able to do is protect the people that make George happy and observe her life, never to actually be included. However, Blanca’s love is still present and very real. The reader gets to learn and fall in love with these characters while Blanca does. You get their history as well as hers, you yearn with Blanca while she yearns, and you learn to understand these deeply flawed human beings through Blanca’s eyes but also their own and each other’s.

Briefly, A Delicious Life is perfect for all romance and fantasy readers, as well as those who want to fall back in love with the world around them.

[Thushara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnf @ 65%.

In my eyes, the perfect historical fiction must have a sense of time & place. This book did not have that 😅It almost read contemporary. I found myself often debating about the time period in which this book was set.

As a fictional biography, Briefly, A Delicious Life failed to add more depth to the central 'characters'. Instead, they felt emotionally unavailable. We do get George's pov, yet she feels detached. The authorial voice did not feel unique to either perspective. It bleeds together, indistinguishable & monotonous. If you're not carefully reading, you might actually get confused as to whose pov you are reading from.

The characterization fell flat. We are told things & not shown. I feel harsh saying this but I found myself caring more about George Sand & Chopin's relationship while reading an online article than when I read more than half of this book.

Unfortunately, the premise of a ghost falling in love with a woman was the only thing that was interesting in this book.

[Emily Coffee and Commentary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gorgeously written account of what makes a life extraordinary, and what inspires the dead to become captivated by the living. Briefly, A Delicious Life is a lush exploration of falling in love, of the tides and depths of devotion, romance, sensuality. It is an observation of creativity, what hidden things we find in nature, each other, to create something that lasts for centuries. It’s pages are a lush ode to the ways in which the human spirit carves a legacy, the ways our feelings are strong enough to last long after our bodies fall away. Brimming with longing and the divinity of human connections, this novel sheds light on the motivations that ghosts have to endure, and how death is sometimes the mere beginning of our journey of self discovery.

[Sarah-Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of Briefly, a Delicious Life is promising: Blanca, the Ghost of an adolescent woman who died in a Spanish monastery during the 15th Century, tells us the story of Georges Sand, her lover Frederick Chopin, and her two children, who have traveled to the now long-abandoned monastery looking for warmth and comfort that will ease Chopin's tuberculosis, anticipating neither the challenging winter weather nor the impression their menage will make on the local villagers.

The story fascinates, moving back and forth between 15th and 19th Century, observing the limitations placed on women's lives in both eras. Blanca has had centuries to learn to rebel against those limitations; Sand assails them on a daily basis.

The reason this turned out to be a three-star read for me is that, as interesting as this set-up is, I simply didn't come to care for any of the characters well enough to feel invested in their experiences. It spoke to my mind, but not to my heart. If you enjoy novels that push readers to think, you may enjoy this one. If you prefer novels that let you join with the characters within them, you're apt to be disappointed.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh :') i very enjoyed this and in fact the last line made me weep. such a loving, thoughtful story about daring to notice and wanting so badly to be noticed back; about all the tiny ways love can fill you to the brim. blanca's fascination with george really killed me, i am really biting back Emotion here. QUEER IDENTIFICATORY DESIRE! "a hot and restless urge to look—and, by looking, to know”!!!!!!!!! that's the shit. i am SAD.

quotes that killed me especially:

- I imagined, sometimes, that they were my clothes, that I could be as real and sharp and clothed as George, could straddle a wall and smoke a cigar and write a book. That night, though, I was so tired and so alone that I imagined the clothes were George herself, that she was enveloping me, pressing back when I pressed her.

- It is as though I am watching my soul, she thinks, walking around in clothes and boots, outside of my body. It is a terrible, agonizing, unbearable experience and she goes back to the theater night after night to feel it again.

- Sometimes, she thinks, you just know that someone has something to do with you. One of the friends writes back: are you in love with him or do you want to eat him?

:')

[Wera · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars
**Many thanks to Pan Macmillan, Picador, Nell Stevens, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review**

“What is desire, without a body to have it in?”

This novel follows a cast of historical characters as seen through the eyes of Blanca, a ghost who is haunting the Valldemossa town in the Mallorcan countryside. Simultaneously, we watch the stories of George Sand Frederic Chopin and Blanca unfold in a poetic prose that conveys an ever present sense of intimacy. This is a book more about sensations and feelings rather than a central conflict therefore it might be not for everyone's taste, but in my opinion this is a beautiful piece of literature nonetheless.

I found Blanca's narration to be very intriguing. She not only acts as a watcher like, Death does in The Book Thief, but she also has this ability to directly interact and somewhat influence what is going on in the narrative. Moreover, she is able to read some thoughts of the characters as well as witness their pasts. This is especially true of her approach to George who she is enamoured by. I also found it interesting how intimate Blanca gets with all the characters whether it is laying in bed with them as she listens to their internal monologue for how personally she gets invested in their struggles. I love when you can get to know a character through their style of narration and that is definitely true of how Blanca is written.

I must also remark on the prose itself. Stevens has a true talent for writing in a form that suits the tone and mood that she wants to get across. This results in a very atmospheric read where you can feel the moist Mallorcan air as well as the stale scent of Chopin's sickbed. As already remarked, the narration is very intimate and it is highlighted by Stevens ability to describe the minute details in a way that's not overbearing but makes you feel just like Blanca: getting close to every single protagonist and yet not being able to interact with them as they are creations on a page.

The reason why I don't rate this higher is because I am not certain of what the central exploration is of the story. I am unsure if it is love, if it is perspective, if it is the significance of time. All these things are heavily present in the fabric of the narrative and yet I'm not sure which one I was supposed to pay the most attention to since all of them are delicately touched upon yet not intricately enough pursued. That being said, I thought it was interesting how this is a book that recenters a heavily male dominant event in history (Chopin's creation of the Raindrop Prelud) focuses on George Sand and her emotions as she watches her lover fade away and her family fall apart. My rating would be higher if such a theme would be more apparent to me simply because on the other hand I don't have an upbeat tempo to keep me interested in reading for longer periods of time.

Either way, I really enjoyed this read and I highly recommend it to lovers of music (the descriptions of music and composing or breathtaking) and people interested in this premise of a ghost slowly falling in love with a female novelist.

[Halle Kirby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went into this book almost completely blind and I’m so glad I did! it’s a beautifully romantic historical fiction, filled with music, love, and humility. the book focuses on gender roles quite a lot, which was really interesting to read about, as the book is set in 1800’s Paris and Mallorca. George, one of our central characters, rejects marriage and typical women’s fashion, adopting trousers and suits for most of the book.

our MC, Blanca, is a ghost who I could listen to for hours and days. I thought she was a really good narrator for this story, and it added a queer, sultry element that made this book. she also had her own heartbreaking and saddening story, adding to the overall somber nature of the novel.

nell stevens is an amazing writer. I could have highlighted every paragraph in this book because they were so lyrically told. it adds to listen to the mentioned Chopin compositions that make up some chapters of the book, because the music adds so much to the writing that I couldn’t even understand fully until I listed and read (swipe for the playlist)

thank you so so much @picador for this proof copy! this is now one of my favourite books 🍊❤️‍🔥

[Ruxandra Grrr · Rating 3 out of 5]

The overall effect was of doubt in the left hand and love in the right: the two sides competing, ignoring and consulting one another by turn. There was a sort of dread in it. While he lay prone, eyes closed, Chopin’s fingers twitched as he thought his way through the whole thing.

This was... fine? Quite beautiful at times, but it didn't really shake my world. It did make me think that I simply must read some George Sand, I've been meaning to for decades, but it just slipped my mind all this time. When I was a pre-teen or early teen, I saw this movie called Impromptu, about the messy a.f. love story between George Sand and Frederic Chopin (played by Hugh Grant, who I had a massive crush on). It was quite a revelation, and looking back I think it was the whole gender fuckery subversiveness of it all, with a shy, introverted Chopin and an assertive Sand, in her male clothes and atitudes. That movie was part of the reason I read this book.

It's the story of a bisexual ghost lusting after (and falling in love with) Sand (also a bisexual-ish), who is visiting Mallorca with a sickly Chopin (also also a bisexual-ish) and her two kids, Solange and Maurice. It gets even messy and even messier. But I can't say that I felt very much engaged. The story, per se, didn't interest me that much and at this time in my life, a long way from pre-teen / early teen me, the examinations of gender and queerness and dynamics between men and women didn't feel specific or intriguing enough for me. I didn't get super attached to Blanca the ghost, her story (rendered in flashbacks) felt quite boilerplate and she tended to disappear into the scenery (pun intended) while she used her special powers of seeing the past and future of the people she is haunting.

The bits that I did find emotionally affecting were the ones involving neglected child Solange and her pain. George's plight is interesting in theory - she has two kids, she is taking care of a sickly man who needs a lot from her, and the only times when she can work on her novels are nights, until dawn, I definitely feel for her -, but in practice, it just didn't get to me that much. It's probably the same reason I don't read a lot of literary / historical fiction, I just get bored...? With my ADHD, I just need some sort of 'newness' and stimulation. And this didn't feel like 'it'.

[Nada Elshabrawy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very smart and funny. This is one promising author, I can’t wait for what she writes after.

[Olivia (Stories For Coffee) · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting premise with some stunning explorations of lust and life, but overall, this short read dragged on and felt as though it was reaching towards something it couldn't quite grasp for me.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Briefly, a Delicious Life' by Nell Stevens is gorgeous, just gorgeous, and effortlessly refreshing for the palette. If you've been disappointed in the fiction of 2022 so far, READ THIS (and the upcoming 'Small Angels' by Lauren Owen next month)! The piece doesn't read like a debut fiction novel. It's assured; it's resolved, forthright.

The story finds its gravitational pull in the figure of George Sand, who has brought Chopin to Mallorca for convalescence. In the figure of Sand, Stevens draws a character with intense conviction. I found there was no need - and no room - for questions of 'truthfulness' or faithfulness to history. I felt no need to ask whether the text aligned with fact; the meat of the story sufficed, refreshingly outstripping other recent novels based upon historical figures. This delivers what I hoped Lauren Groff's 'Matrix' was going to last year; it does what 'The Flames' by Sophie Haydock failed to do earlier this year; it does what 'The Language of Food' by Annabel Abbs did last autumn, only better, and more gorgeously; more 'deliciously'.

Everything is seen, smelt, felt, heard and tasted by Blanca, our narrator.  All the senses are exploited here. 'Briefly, a Delicious Life' is all about how living feels; how it is experienced greatly and most vividly through the senses, rather than through thought, or philosophically:

'Other consoling sensations: the rasping tongue of a dog greeting its owner; tree bark against the palms of a young person climbing; the rippling orgasm of a woman who had discovered how to use her fingers for herself; salt on the lips of someone who has been swimming in the sea. I liked to feel the soft, humming fur of a cat being stroked. I liked the taste of wine.'

And whose is the titular delicious life? I'd argue for the deliciousness of Blanca's involvement in Sand's life during the years George Sand lives with Chopin and her own two children; the brief life that Blanca inhabits with George and through George, observing her, desiring her, experiencing sensation through her:

'I imagined how it would be to press myself against her, in between her toes, into the crook of her elbow, the crease between her nostril and her cheek, though I never quite dared try. Instead, I placed myself under the wet drip-drip-drip of the clothes on the branches and thought of all that could be done between two women in possession of bodies, what effects could be achieved with fingers and tongues.'

As I've said in other reviews, when a novel is published that accurately and fairly represents sexual attraction between women, its importance in and to the book world cannot be overestimated. 'Briefly, a Delicious Life' does that, and does it graciously and genuinely, or generously, or gorgeously, or all of the above.

Blanca's afterlife as a spirit able to inhabit people's minds to 'live' through their senses, also allows us to view their memories and, thus, read their histories through glimpses of their memory. As a plot device, this didn't make me uncomfortable. I can see how it might be jarring for some readers, such a convenient authorial contrivance as it is. But I find that I could reconcile that cost with the wealth that it reaps in terms of opportunities to explore physicality and sensuality. Basically, Blanca could take me anywhere she likes, as long as she keeps describing what she sees, feels, smells, tastes, and hears:

'I felt a wrench in the silence that followed. There was something about Chopin's music that lodged itself between your teeth - where teeth had been - or slipped through your ribs - where ribs had been - and became a new part of your body - where body had been. There was something about it that gave you a body to borrow, and let you live in it, briefly, extraordinarily.'

In this regard, I would say disregard the blurb about 'Briefly, a Delicious Life': phrases like 'emotionally moving' and 'surprisingly touching' fall far short of the mark for Stevens's fiction debut and, in my opinion, 'romantic fixation' is the very last thing I'd identify as its subject matter. The core of this piece of writing is the impact upon the mind of the physical senses, as all of the quotes above demonstrate. Stevens achieves this in a manner that's vivacious, hefty, absolute, not - as the blurb would have it - merely 'charming' and 'original'.

I don't hesitate to mark 'Briefly, a Delicious Life' as a five-star read. It will be something I'll reread, and have as a fixture in the STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS section of the library.

All citations are of an advanced copy and are subject to change upon publication.

My thanks to Picador, Pan Macmillan, for an ARC through Netgalley.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Stevens’s third book but her first novel; her previous books (Bleaker House and Mrs Gaskell & Me) were autofiction-ish but have tended to be classified as memoirs. That same playfulness with genre is here, turning what could have been a straightforward biographical novel about George Sand – in the vein of the underwhelming The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg – into something cheeky and magical.

George Sand spent the winter of 1838–9 on Mallorca with her children, Solange and Maurice, and her lover, composer Frédéric Chopin. Stevens imagines that the monastery where they stay is still haunted by Blanca, a teenager who died in childbirth (having been impregnated by one of the trainee monks) there in 1473. Sand and Chopin – between them “Godless foreign odd consumptive cross-dressers … strangers and strange and strangely insouciant about their strangeness” – are instantly unpopular with the locals.

Blanca draws readers along on a tour of own past and George’s. Like any benevolent ghost, she’s a fan of pranks, but also hopes that she might use her power of omniscience to reverse tragic trajectories. A lover of men in her lifetime, she’s now enamoured with women in the hereafter, and outraged at how, even centuries later, women’s rights and desire are still being ignored. This is an earthy, impish, sexy read. Though it starts to wear a little thin before the end, it’s still well worth the ride.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Liv]

SAD GAY GHOSTS. I REPEAT, SAD GAY GHOSTS.

[Boston · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

On my blog.

Actual rating 2.5

Rep: bi mc, bi side characters

CWs: mentions of domestic abuse, paedophilia

Galley provided by publisher

Briefly, a Delicious Life was a book that I didn’t mind reading, but I didn’t really love it. Perhaps this was something I should have foreseen from the start. It never really sounded exactly my kind of book, but I was tempted by the idea of a ghost in love with a woman. And it wasn’t a bad book, for sure. It just wasn’t my kind of book.

And since most of my reasons for the rating are due to it being that, let me instead list some reasons you might enjoy it.

— It’s a book that is clearly well-researched and a lot of thought has gone into creating a Mallorca that jumps off the page. You feel like you’re there with the characters as all this is happening.

— If you enjoy character-driven stories, this is one for you. Yes, it’s primarily about Blanca, the ghost of a girl who died in childbirth at the monastery, but it’s also about George and Chopin and George’s two children. It’s not a novel where a whole lot happens, in truth, since it’s mostly about the characters and their various relationships and states of mind.

— Speaking of plots, if you like stories where there isn’t that clear a narrative direction, where it really is just about characters living, then this would be one for you.

But as I said, it wasn’t really a book for me, and part of this was to do with the lack of drive, part of it was simply it was never really going to be one. I didn’t feel enough for the characters and, in a book like this, once I’d decided that, there was no real hope for it.

[маја · Rating 4 out of 5]

[i have to preface this by saying i have zero knowledge on the historical background of this book]
this was such an enjoyable read? it was sorta weird and i don't know how comfortable i would be in recommending it to people, considering i don't think it's for everyone. i mean i know that's usually a thing you say about every book lol but i feel like it needs to be pointed out.
it was atmospheric and slow paced, there's not too much plot. the characters were interesting but not in a sense of them being memorable characters you will think about for years to come, more in a combined-with-a-smart-narrative-structure sorta way. the writing style was enjoyable and i really liked seeing this story from the point of view of someone who had their life cut short (so essentially a teenager) as well as someone who spent decades as a ghost and has seen many things. i consumed this in audiobook form but i would like to revisit it physically once the paperback is out. i tend to like historical fiction that just gives me the quiet escapism and the rich, atmosphere-focused vibes, so if you're looking for that as well as a book that plays with its use of a narrator, i would recommend this.