"Lovers of Europa Editions' other titles My Brilliant Friend and Fresh Water for Flowers will fall hard for this beautiful, heartbreaking, and healing story. Grab a box of tissues!" — Electric Lit
Full of humor and compassion, this Indie Next Pick is a profound exploration of sisterhood, healing, and the ineffable beauty of life.
Sisters Emma and Agathe were thick as thieves when they were young but have always been as different as can be. Five years older, Emma was the defender, protector, and worrier for her fiery younger sister until tragedy marred their relationship.
For a long time, Emma has kept her distance from Agathe and her chaos. But when their adored grandmother dies, they must return together to Spain to empty out her house and, in the process, reconcile, remember, and pour out what is hidden inside their hearts.
Alternating between the sisters' childhood and the present day, Grimaldi's delicately wrought prose paints complex portraits of the two women, asking if the scars of the past can ever truly be healed, and what, in the end, is a good life.
Laughter, tears, and the transformative power of love — these are the ingredients that combine to make this uplifting, unputdownable literary novel the summer read of 2024.
“A life-affirming look at how love and dedication can overcome pain and heal scars.” —The Washington Post
“Grimaldi is a best-selling author in France, and her bittersweet English-language debut is sure to tug at the heartstrings of readers who appreciate moving novels which explore the complexities of sisterly love and mental illness, such as All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews (2014), or Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee (2018).” —Booklist
“[Grimaldi] sees life as an extended dialogue of sorts, with others and with ourselves. She isn’t too concerned about right and wrong, seeing both terms as limiting and beside the point...In Grimaldi’s universe, it seems to be about the difficulties and messiness of love and what we must be willing to do to keep it forever.” —World Literature Today
“As the sisters tentatively attempt to reconnect, their fractured pasts are slowly revealed in ways that are both sweet and heartbreaking, the story deftly explores all aspects of their lives, from the scars of their girlhoods to the challenges of motherhood, and everything in between.” —Paste Magazine
“Virginie Grimaldi delivers her most accomplished, strongest novel. Her best.” —Le Parisien
“Grimaldi's concise prose, translated by Hildegarde Serle, is striking and vivid, painting a sympathetic portrait of the enduring bond of sisterhood. Readers will fall under the spell of a compassionately revealed story that blends poignancy and humor in depicting the transcendental nature of familial love and forgiveness.” —Shelf Awareness
"Chapters rock back and forth like the waves of the ocean...Lovers of Europa Editions’ other titles My Brilliant Friend and Fresh Water for Flowers will fall hard for this beautiful, heartbreaking, and healing story. Grab a box of tissues!” —Electric Lit
“Refined, sensitive, and full of humor, as always with Virginie Grimaldi.” —Cosmopolitan (France)
“Despite the many dark themes explored in this novel, A Good Life is ultimately quite joyous . . . It is, in the end, a novel in which its universally relatable plot and vibrant characters are perfectly rendered in deceptively simple prose, and I am sure that readers will love every single word.” —Ashley Riggleson, FXBG Advance
“An explosion of emotions.” —Paris Normandie
“The idyllic Basque setting sits in contrast to the sisters’ recalled heartaches but serves as a balm to their sentimental souls as they recall the nurturing affection Mima provided. Translated from French by Serle, Grimaldi’s account of two sisters taking stock of what’s brought them this far is affecting but smile producing as well.” —Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Virginie Grimaldi was born in 1977 in Bordeaux, where she still lives. She is the author of nine novels and was the most read French writer for three consecutive years (in 2019, 2020, and 2021). Her novels have been bestsellers in Europe and have been translated into more than twenty languages.
For Europa Editions, Hildegarde Serle has translated the bestselling Mirror Visitor series by Christelle Dabos and Valérie Perrin’s best-selling Fresh Water for Flowers. She lives in London.
