The Matchmaker Of Perigord
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
A perpetual breeze blows through Amour-sur-Belle, a village so ugly that even the English refuse to live there.
Guillaume Ladoucette the barber is forced to give up his business as the advancing age of his customers means many have gone bald. He decides to set himself up as a matchmaker instead, for, despite its name, love is the one thing that Amour-sur-Belle lacks. Some shun Denise Vigier because her grandmother was found guilty of horizontal collaboration during the war. The bar owner refuses to serve Madame Fournier, the mushroom poisoner. And Madame Ladoucette and Madame Moreau have been trading insults for so long they have become almost a form of greeting.
'Not everyone falls instantly head over heels,' the matchmaker counsels. 'Love is like a good cassoulet, it needs time and determination.' But how can a matchmaker make love simmer - when he has not yet solved the problem of his own troubled heart?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Unhappy cutting hair, Guillaume, the barber of the tiny, declining French town of Amour-sur-Belle, renames his shop Heart's Desire and tries his hand at matchmaking, even though he lost his first love, Emilie, years ago. Guillaume soon proves hopeless: he can't even help his best friend, Yves Leveque, whose heartaches have actually caused him indigestion. When Emilie returns to Amour-sur-Belle a rich divorc e, and sets about restoring a dilapidated old chateau that once brought tourists to the city, she enlivens the slumping town's eligible suitors and the town wags who watch their every move. Debut novelist Stuart infects Amour-sur-Belle's byzantine lore with whimsy (a mini-tornado that made the town pharmacist disappear), the usual beefs (an age-old feud, which began with Guillaume's mother) and sensual detail. It's all done well enough, but a reliance on magical-realist elements to resolve the town's spiraling affairs makes for an unsatisfying resolution.
