A special thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Linden Malegarde has returned home to Paris from the United States where he lives with his partner.  It has been years since his family was all together.  They have reunited for the patriarch's birthday; Paul is celebrating a milestone and is turning 70.

The City of Lights is on the verge of a natural disaster when the Seine bursts and it floods the city.  Paris is as fragile as the Malegarde family's relationships—each member is trying to balance the delicate family dynamics.  Paul is a world-renowned arborist that only seems to have eyes for his grove of trees.  Lauren is his American wife who is determined to make the weekend a success.  Tilia, the blunt oldest child has an 18-year-old daughter Mistral who is adored by her uncle Linden.  Colin is Tilia's much older spouse, an elegant British art dealer that can no longer hid his drinking problem.  

And that leaves Linden.  He has never been comfortable in his own skin and never feels settled having grown up as an American in France, and a Frenchman in the US.  His relationship with his father has always been off.  Even though he is a successful and in demand photographer, he feels that he will always be a disappointment to his parents.

Bound by tragic events, the family must fight to remain united as secrets unfold and their greatest fears surface.

Set in Paris during a rainstorm, this gorgeous, haunting work was captivating from start to finish. 

de Rosnay's writing is elegant,  hypnotic, and incredibly moving.  The story is profound and intense, yet soft and beautiful.  I devoured this book in one sitting and would highly recommend.

Set in Paris during a stunning natural disaster “The Rain Watcher is a drama that slowly unfolds the Malegarde’s family secrets. Paul and Lauren Malegarde are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary and Paul 70th birthday with their two adult children but unfortunately the reunion doesn’t go as planned. The streets of Paris are waterlogged and the Seine is still rising at a rapid pace amongst the chaos sickness is at the family door…..

The atmosphere in Paris is dark: electricity is out, it is cold: no one has heat and everything is wet: water is still rising and flooding basements: one catastrophe after the other is at everyone’s door. While everything is going haywire in the city of lights, Linden, the Malegarde youngest son analyses and critics his relationships with each member of his family in a very moving tone. His narration is the heart of this story.

This is a story of love and redemption where everyone has withheld something. Secrets… sounds intriguing but what a letdown, as it moves along in an snail pace, the story soon goes in random directions and becomes repetitive. There are a lot of dots to connect but don’t try to do so, you will be questioning yourself wondering if you missed a point... Most of the book is about the flood but I failed to match this with the family saga. Was this story about the hardship of the flood or the family reunion gone badly?

Finally, this family with a dysfunctional background slowly reveals their secrets: memories trigger a deluge of emotions in its members….and bonds finally tightens but is it too late…..

More thoughts:

Although the writing is fluid and all the descriptions of Paris in the rain are wonderful, unfortunately, despite Ms. De Rosnay great writing skills and beautiful descriptions, I never really got into this book; I found it long and devoid of suspense. The story is bland, the characters without consistency, I was bored and had trouble finishing the book.... in short, a colorless novel, odorless and tasteless….Not Ms. De Rosnay best….

I received this ARC from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalleys for my thoughts

Short story collection. Breakdown of the stories:

1. Hotel Room - yeah I saw that ending coming a mile away, but Karma came with a big bite.

2.The Texts - really stupid story about a wife who calls an advice line looking for help regarding her cheating husband. Ends up with the wife berating the advice giver with such misogynist bullshit (ie the cat lady stereotype).

3. The "Baby Monitor" - this situation has been over used to the point of comedy. Wife catches hubby cheating on her with her friend via the baby monitor. Wife threatens in a very calm way that she is going to take a meat cleaver and kill the friend.

4. The Red Notebook - insecure wife cheats her way through five years of marriage because her husband is dull and unaware of her cheating ways even though she has purposely left clues. She does this hoping to get a rise out of him and have wild angry sex with her husband. Her plan is ridiculous and fails spectacularly - turns out he has been cheating on her the whole time and has a notebook full of women's names, dates, and places where he cheated. Wife finds the notebook and is overcome with grief at her husband's cheating. He leaves her one final note. The hypocrisy is immeasurable in this story.

5. The Answering Machine - the wife is a moron who can't work an answering machine in 1992. She finds out her husband is having an affair via a message left on the machine. She also finds out she is pregnant and just knows it is a girl, so she is not leaving her husband, although his cheating makes her depressed. Another unoriginal plotline.

6. The Au Pair Girl - incredibly racist friends share lunch one day and one friend admits she has caught her husband cheating on her with the 18 year old nanny. She is talked out of having an affair with her husband's best friend when the other woman mentions her cheating incident involving condoms. The friend is too embarrassed to buy condoms, ask the potential lover to wear one, or put one on him during the seduction. I can't believe I am reading this story (published in English in 2015) in 2017.

7. The Strand of Hair - wife decided to leave her cheating husband but destroys all their possessions and leaves a note to demand a divorce.

8. The Woods - wife follows her husband as he gets a blow job from a prostitute. She leaves her wedding ring on the hood after the husband looks up and sees her staring at him and the prostitute. 

9. The Passwords - this was a much different story than I expected and one I really enjoyed. Attention male professors in Paris: Don't sexual harass or academically ruin an American student after she turned down your offer of sex or you will pay the consequences.

10. The USB Key - the twist is the cheating husband is in love with man. He can't take the lying anymore, so he records his confession to her on the USB and leaves it with instructions for the wife to watch. The wife decided she wanted to stay married to him even though the husband has admitted he is gay and wants out of the marriage, so she is holding the son as ransom for the husband to stay married to her. I felt like she is doing this to get back at the husband and for her own selfish reasons. I honestly felt for the husband  - he has known of his sexuality but his family pressured him into not believing in his homosexuality and forcing him into a life of a straight man. Now his wife is doing the same thing to him.

11. The Brunette from Rue Raynouard - the brunette in question is a doctor, a sex therapist. The husband has been seeing her as a patient to help him deal with his stupid wife's affair that he found out about. Wife is super paranoid that the husband is cheating on her. But it is not like that....in the end, the married couple kiss and make up. *eye roll*

Overall, wealthy (or at least well-to-do) pretty white people want to create some drama in their boring lives - this is the number one reason I don't read literary fiction. So many stories involve women who cheated or were cheated on right after they had kids (so many babies in these stories). A parallel theme to the cheating spouses were the fact that they sucked as parents as well, aside from keeping a lover on the side.French men were given such a ugly treatment from the author, they should feel very offended; words such as "rutting beasts" are used to describe French men in general for example. There were layers of classism, racism, and huge amounts of internal and external misogyny colored the stories to the point where the author made these characters into cartoons. And there was no originality to the plotlines (screwing the nanny is nothing new, just ask Ben Affleck or Jude Law). I only liked the one story (about the American student) and I really felt for the gay trapped in a marriage with a woman who doesn't want to give up her status or appearances as a married woman. 0 stars. 

There are so many new releases in April. It's a big release month. I'm super excited for all of these. I have quite a few mystery books on the tbr and I don't read many mysteries. I'm trying to get out of my comfort zone. I even have a nonfiction. Usually these slow me down, but the early reviews of Killers of the Flower Moon lead me to think otherwise.

Can't wait to get to three reads by trusted 4-5 star rated Authors; Behind the Scenes by Jen Turano, Boss by Tracy Brown and Seized By Seduction by Beverly Jenkins. Tatiana De Rosnay has written a biography about Daphne Du Maurier. I know so many who absolutely adore Rebecca. I haven't read it, but am eager. However, once I learned that it may be plagiarized and that some feel none of her other books ever lived up to Rebecca I felt some kind of way about it.

What are your most anticipated April Releases? Do tell. Happy Reading!

This is a short story collection of forbidden loves where infidelity is a given. Ms. De Rosnay demonstrates 11 ways to deceive and/or leave your partner/lover.

The book is not big 128 pages or so and if full of intensity, love and much more. In each story we had a different perspective of how women see their marriage and how they find out that their husband cheated on them and how they took their revenge.

Told with humour but also with sadness the author works her magic and takes us to Paris where love hardly plays a role but the more complex nature of relationships. The pinpoint is an affair and the emotional ride that makes us uncomfortable and mad but it will not stop the reader flipping page after page for more.

This is delightfully wicked….simply fantastic and so real….