Today I’m joining the blog tour for Double Room. My review is written with thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me on the tour and to Orenda Books for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

London, late 1990s. Stan, a young and promising French composer, is invited to arrange the music for a theatrical adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The play will never be staged, but Stan meets Liv, the love of his life, and their harmonious duo soon becomes a trio with the birth of their beloved daughter, Lisa. Stan’s world is filled with vibrant colour and melodic music, and under his wife and daughter’s gaze, his piano comes to life.
Paris, today. After Liv’s fatal accident, Stan returns to France surrounded by darkness, no longer able to compose, and living in the Rabbit Hole, a home left to him by an aunt. He shares his life with Babette, a lifeguard and mother of a boy of Lisa’s age, and Laïvely, an AI machine of his own invention endowed with Liv’s voice, that he spent entire nights building after her death.
But Stan remains haunted by his past. As the silence gradually gives way to noises, whistles and sighs – sometimes even bursts of laughter – and Laïvely seems to take on a life of its own, memories and reality fade and blur…
And Stan’s new family implodes…
For readers who love Laura Kasischke, David Nicholls and Kazuo Ishiguro

Review:

Double Room is not a book I would usually read but I am very glad that I did. Anne Sénès is a beautiful writer and her words have been wonderfully translated so that all the emotions in the novel come through the page in such a powerful way. I love the way that Stan’s emotions are represented by colours and smells as this helped me to understand his complex feelings.

The novel is written over two different time frames – twenty years ago and the present day. This affords the reader the opportunity to glimpse into Liv and Stan’s relationship and I loved the tenderness with which their life together was described. The characters are really well developed and this helped me to relate to them and care for them, despite Stan coming across as distant. It also means that the impact of his grief in the present day is stark on the page.

Through Double Room, Anne Sénès explores a number of important themes including grief, romantic relationships and parenthood. She does this in such a sensitive and gentle way that is impossible not to be touched by Anne Senes words. Stan, Liv and Babette will stay with me for a long time to come.

Double Room is available from Amazon.

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