Blog tour: Breaststrokes

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Welcome to the blog tour for Breaststrokes by Margaux Vialleron!

More about the book…

A novel on pleasure, desire and consent told over the course of one weekend.

Cloe and Gertrude and the Jenkins-Bell sisters, Mathilde and Sarah, have never met.  They are strangers who share only a city. It is Sunday morning. Cloe has woken-up in someone else’s home; Gertrude starts her shift in the pub kitchen, while Mathilde and Sarah are on their way to lunch.

Soon, these four women’s lives will overlap.

Saturday felt like a normal day, but on Sunday the past will catch-up with them as they realise that there never is only one side to a story.

More about the author…

Margaux Vialleron is French-born, Glasgow-based writer, who is co-host of the SPK Book Club – a podcast, reading and culinary community. Her short stories and essays have been published in magazines including Harper’s Bazaar and Compound Butter.

She is the author of The Yellow Kitchen and Breaststrokes is her second novel. 

Read more from Margaux by subscribing to her substack newsletter, The Onion Papers, or connect with her on Twitter and Instagram @margauxvlln. 

My impressions…

This is not an easy review to write as this was not an easy book to read - in the best possible way! Wonderfully written, in a very distinctive voice, this novel deals with the theme of consent – its interpretation, its abuse, its protection. To do so, we follow four women during a weekend that could be like any other… but isn’t. They don’t know each other and, even if two of them are sisters, we soon realise that there is a lot these two don’t know about each other. We learn about their past and present lives, their fears and hopes, their relationships – romantic or otherwise. We witness their coming together, by chance, and the discussion that is sparked.

If you like a book that makes you think, that makes you talk to others… this is it.

Three words to describe it. Current. Raw. Powerful.

Do I like the cover? It’s beautiful!

Have I read any other books by the same author? Yes, I’ve read her debut novel too, The Yellow Kitchen.

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