Anne's Review

This excellent book is by the same author as The Henna Artist. Some critics have said that it is the third in a trilogy Which suggests that the book is incomplete on its own. Not correct. It is an entity unto itself and a fine one at that.

Paris; 1974.  Radha is a young wife living with her husband Pierre and her two daughters. Radha having had an illegitimate son before her marriage that her husband doesn’t know about. The boy is put up for adoption well before her marriage.

She starts to work in a friend’s perfume business where she discovers that this is exactly where her talent lies.  She finds the perfect fragrance for any customer. Unfortunately, Pierre is opposed to her working but non the less, she continues.

Ten years later she has worked her way up to being a master perfumer and is on her way to India on a business trip when she learns that the son she gave away, is heading to Paris to find her!

That is all I am telling you for now. Enough to arouse your interest.  So do read this well written, well researched novel.

Publishers Reviews

Radha is now thirty-two and living in Paris with her husband, Pierre, and their two daughters. She still grieves for the baby boy she gave up years ago, when she was only a child herself, but she loves being a mother to her daughters, and she’s finally found her passion — the treasure trove of scents.

When her friend’s grandfather offered her a job at his parfumerie, she quickly discovered she had a talent — she could find the perfect fragrance for any customer who walked in the door. Now, ten years later, she’s working for a master perfumer, helping to design completely new fragrances for clients and building her career one scent at a time. She only wishes Pierre could understand her need to work. She feels his frustration, but she can’t give up this thing that drives her.

Tasked with her first major project, Radha travels to India where she enlists the help of her sister, Lakshmi, and the courtesans of Agra — women who use the power of fragrance to seduce, tease, and entice. She’s on the cusp of a breakthrough when she finds out the son she never told her husband about is heading to Paris to find her — upending her carefully managed world and threatening to destroy a vulnerable marriage.