Menu d'amour
World Rights:
Sold to Paperback (Piper), Audiobook (Hörbuch Hamburg), Italy (Feltrinelli), Spain (Espasa Libros), Catalonia (Columna).
Hardcover:
Thiele Verlag 2013 (160 pages), more than 45.000 copies sold in Germany.
When unworldly literature student Henri Bredin falls in love with vivacious Valérie Castel, she seems as unreachable as the moon. Having almost given up hope of winning the heart of the girl with the aquamarine eyes when he discovers an old book with the recipe for a love potion at a second hand bookstall. Is it possible that, even today, something like that could work?
She’s always late. She’s the most dazzling girl in the class. And she’s unattainable. Henri Bredin is a diffident literature student, and his love for her seems hopeless, even if he and the lovely Valérie Castel share the same favorite book. Because all Valérie sees in Henri is a good friend, even though for Henri the girl with the aquamarine eyes and the mocking smile is the one he could love like no other.
When Valérie travels to the Italian Riviera with her parents in the summer vacation and falls for the charms of an Italian, who is well-off, good-looking and ten years older than him, the love-struck student is devastated. He has no chance against this rival. Or does he?
A little later Henri makes a fateful discovery at a second-hand bookstall: A sixteenth-century poisoner’s manual bound in ox-blood leather with the recipe for an élixir d’amour. Against all the dictates of reason Henri decides to cook the menu of his life and invite his beloved to dinner. But of all evenings, this is the one when the normally unpunctual Valérie arrives half an hour early ...
A magical little story about the delight and heartache of first love and the truly magical moments in life. With seven lovers’ menus from the author’s personal cookbook.