The Perfume Garden

An international bestseller, Kate Lord Brown's debut novel "The Perfume Garden" has sold especially well in Canada, where it was selected as Read of the Month for June 2015 and made it to the Globe & Mail bestseller list.

High in the hills of Valencia, a forgotten house guards its secrets. Untouched since Franco's forces tore through Spain in 1936, the whitewashed walls have crumbled, and the garden, laden with orange blossom, grows wild. Emma Temple, London's leading perfumier, is the first to unlock its doors in seventy years. Her free-spirited mother, Liberty, has just passed away, leaving her the house mysteriously purchased just before her death. At the same time, Emma broke up with her long-time lover and business partner, although she carries his baby.

Emma, guided by a series of letters and a key bequeathed to her in Liberty's will, travels to Valencia, where she will give birth in the beautiful but decaying house. Emma makes it her mission to restore the place to its former glory. But for her aging grandmother, Freya, a British nurse who stayed in Valencia during Spain's devastating civil war, Emma's new home evokes memories of a terrible secret, a part of her family's past that until now has managed to stay hidden. With two beautifully interwoven narratives and a lush, atmospheric setting, Kate Lord Brown's "The Perfume Garden" is a dramatic, emotional debut that readers won't soon forget.