I decided this time to check out a French best selling author ‘Katherine Pancol‘ . Colourful books on female themes I thought, so why not give my feminine side a chance to shine through!
As often on books I am unsure of I chose to listen on audio during my daily commute (if it turns out to be not my book, I feel less bad about dropping it). Well this book in its slow careful and detailed way kept me interested from start to end. Here in France this book is a huge success and in my view deservedly so, it was translated into English in 2014. This intricate story centres around Josephine and her family, as the story begins she seems to be a weak women in a hopeless marriage, walked on by her extended family, especially her mother and her eldest sister. This book is a coming of age novel, following the slow awakening of its main protagonist, except that Josephine is in her early forties! She grows under strain as her husband leaves her to manage a crocodile farm in Africa and financial pressure bears in on her. With some help from her brother in law and from her best friend Shirley, she manages to keep her head above water. The book is crammed full of character studies, born of careful observation, some of which are caricatures. I didn’t believe the story behind Shirley, otherwise I found some truth in all of the characters and do not regret following my feminine side. This book is part of a trilogy and who knows, maybe one day I will listen to the next episode whilst driving
Les Yeux Jaunes des Crocodiles: First published in France by Albin Michel in 2006
Translated into English as The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles by William Rodarmor and “Helen Dickinson” and published by Penguin in 2013
South of Paris books 