Pascale is a successful pneumologist working at a prestigious hospital in Paris. But recently she has experienced two losses. First she divorced her husband Samuel over their inability to have a child. Second, her mother just died. Beautiful, silent Camille, the daughter of a French officer and a Vietnamese woman, was a devoted mother, but ultimately fell victim to a quiet melancholy that no one could explain or remedy. The funeral takes place in Albi, the Southern town where Pascale spent the first 10 years of her life. When revisiting her former home in Peyrolles, Pascale is seized by the desire to live in the house again. Her ex-husband, who now lives close by, helps her to deal with the strange resistance her father and brother put up against this plan. Pascale finds a new position in a hospital in Toulouse, but has to deal with the irrational hostility of her new boss. She also starts to realize that her family was not as beloved in Peyrolles as she had remembered. But she tries to focus on making the old house habitable, even inviting a childhood friend to room with her. She also meets a new admirer, but is constantly aware of the romantic tension between her and Samuel, who is now dating the clingy Marianne. Then she comes across an old "carnet de famille", the French document on which marriages, births and deaths are recorded, and realizes that there is indeed a gigantic family secret. She sets out to set her life in order : her job, her love life, and... the secret.
The marketing slogan for Francoise Bourdin's books is "Des histoires qui nous ressemblent", which means something like "Stories that look like us". I think that is a good way of putting it. Her heroines go through familiar struggles : love, job, money, divided loyalties. Often there is also the attachment to a family house or business. Her heroines are neither whiny nor invincible, not wimps and not superwomen. It's fun to identify with these young women for a couple of hours, while reading these books. And as opposed to Katherine Pancol or Musso, for instance, whose books are very heavily influenced by AMerican/British Chick lit, I find these books very French. Not just the fact that the protagonists love to eat and drink French specialties (I think there should be a Francoise Bourdin cookbook!) but also the love for the place where one grew up. Her heroes and heroines love their home town and often go back there in middle adulthood, sometimes to save a floundering family business.
Light reading of the better sort!