Book: Off the Wild Coast of Brittany

Off the Wild Coast of Brittany

By Juliet Blackwell

(452 pages, fiction, 2021)

Natalie Morgen had a survivalist childhood. She and her sisters grew up in a family that believed that the end was near. They called their father the Commander and lived underground in a bunker, stockpiling food and learning to hunt and fish, to survive off the land. Natalie finally fled this life, and reinvented herself. She taught herself French cooking, and met a French chef who became her boyfriend. Together they moved to a small island off the coast of Brittany, Île de Feme, back to his roots. They planned to take an old family home and renovate it into a guest house and restaurant. Natalie writes about her experiences and becomes a famous author, with many loyal readers. But then everything goes wrong. Her boyfriend, François-Xavier, doesn’t return from a buying trip in Paris and has taken all their money! Natalie is left on the island, living alone, sad, discouraged, and without the means to continue to restore the guest home. Her sister Alex shows up out of the blue to visit. They are uncomfortable with each other at first but they slowly form a team along with Jean-Luc, their lodger. They start to paint and renovate the old home. Alex finds an old cookbook hidden away in a cupboard that has recipes from the islanders during World War II when the island was occupied by German soldiers. The other storyline is that of Violette, a young woman living on the island during the time of occupation. Violette says that she has an “unruly heart” and chafes at the restrictions placed on her by tradition. The men of the Île de Feme all leave to help France fight the war against Germany. But this leaves the women and children on the island to carry on alone with the enemy who are living among them. Violette struggles to help other islanders get enough to eat to survive. She starts the cookbook as an excuse to visit the other women. And she begins a friendship with Rainier, a German officer who is staying with them. But Violette and Rainer both have dangerous secrets.

I enjoyed this novel for its dynamic and realistic characters and vivid sense of place. The history of this rugged island is a character in its own right.

Visit Concord Public Library online at concordpubliclibrary.net.

Robbin Bailey

Author: Insider Staff

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