THE PERFUME COLLECTOR

The story of a woman who receives an unexpected inheritance, from Pennsylvania-based author Tessaro (Innocence, 2005, etc.).

Grace Munroe, a young woman in London in 1955, receives a letter from Paris informing her that a woman she has never heard of has just died and left her an apartment and an investment portfolio. Believing it must be a mistake, she flies to Paris to investigate this strange inheritance. The story then moves back in time and across the ocean to New York in the 1920s, and they are definitely roaring. Moving from continent to continent and decade to decade, the author reveals the sometimes-tragic, sometimes-exhilarating life journey of Eva D’Orsey. A brilliantly gifted orphan, Eva is catapulted by circumstances into womanhood at a young age. Her journey involves following two men she met while working with the housekeeping staff of a high-end New York hotel. One of these men is himself an orphan and the protégé of an older Russian woman, Madame Zed, who teaches him the art and science of creating perfumes. Andre opens a perfume store in Paris while Eva is in Monte Carlo, counting cards for the rebellious son of an aristocratic English family. Before long, Eva joins Andre at the perfumery in Paris, but then the Nazis take over, and Andre, a Jew, is carted off to a concentration camp despite Eva’s attempt to save him. Eva’s story, told from her perspective, is interspersed with her story as told by Madame Zed to Grace Munroe, who has followed a clue to the old perfume shop. 

A colorful, stimulating journey through time.