*A NUMBER 1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER*
*OVER 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE*

“An appealing indulgence in nature, food and drink, and, above all, friendships.”—The Guardian

A poignant bestselling novel full of French charm and memorable characters.

Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Her daily life is lived to the rhythms of the hilarious and touching confidences of random visitors and her colleagues.

Violette’s routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of a local police chief, Julien Seul, who insists on depositing the ashes of his mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger. The grave Julien is looking for, and his mother’s story of clandestine love, is intertwined with Violette’s own secret past.

The funny, moving, intimately told story of a woman who believes obstinately in happiness, Fresh Water for Flowers brings out the exceptional and the poetic in the ordinary. A delightful, atmospheric, absorbing tale.


What readers are saying:

“I'd read this book over and over again”
“One of those books that you don’t want to end”
“Absolutely amazing story”
“This is one of the BEST BOOKS EVER WRITTEN!”
“A really moving story of hope love and determination”
“this is one of the most life-affirming books I have read”

Valérie Perrin
Valérie Perrin was born in 1967 in Remiremont, in the Vosges Mountains, France. She grew up in Burgundy and settled in Paris in 1986. Her novel The Forgotten Sunday (2015) won the Booksellers Choice Award and the paperback edition has been long-selling best-seller since publication. Her English-language debut, Fresh Water for Flowers (Europa, 2020) won the Maison de la Presse Prize, the Paperback Readers Prize, and was named a 2020 ABA Indies Introduce and Indie Next List title. It has been translated into over thirty languages. Figaro Littéraire named Perrin one of the ten best-selling authors in France in 2019, and in Italy, Fresh Water for Flowers was the best selling book of 2020. Perrin now lives in Normandy.