Fresh Water for Flowers

By: Valérie Perrin

Narrated by: Sara Young

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

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.

The worst narrated book I have listened to

This is the first review I have been compelled to write, for all the wrong reasons. DO NOT let this dreadful audiobook spoil the experience of a lovely novel. I tolerated the horrible French pronunciation. I chose to overlook the monotone reading style, the awful voice acting, the singing — oh god the singing — and the mispronunciation of English words too, for crying out loud. But by chapter 33, with so much singing and so much faux-French, I decided I could no longer continue. Who in the world signed off on this? It is so far beneath the dignity of this author and her readers. Shame.

Loved the story, not the narration

The story is very good. The story took place in France but the narrator made the cemetery crew sound like they were from Brooklyn. I often had difficulty knowing who was speaking. A great story, though.