Charlotte is a 40-year-old mother of a 12-year-old teenager whom she is raising in shared custody with her ex-husband. She settled in Arles after having left all her family and all her relatives 28 years earlier in Sarlat in the beautiful family home surrounded by walnut trees. The cottage industry has always been in walnut oil and its by-products.
She leaves behind a rather heavy past. 28 years pass, and one day her aunt who raised her as a second mother calls her for help: she is seriously ill and wants to see her one last time.
It’s a terrible dilemma for Charlotte but she will feel indebted for this final visit for this aunt she adored. She is going to undertake this journey which is a return to her roots and confront her childhood secrets, her half-brother whom she did not see growing up, this father whom she sees as someone who gave up, to this hostile stepmother towards him. She will have to face this tragedy that has changed everything in her life.
She is an endearing character, a heroine who has seen her life shattered by a terrifying teenage secret which she has never dared to speak about, but which forbids her to lead a normal existence, she inflicts on herself a punishment which she does not deserve. She will face this past and a lot of things will come to the surface.
It’s a novel, so there is a romantic touch but it is part of a suspense story, which revolves around memory, resilience, hope, suffering with a question that serves driver: do we ever recover from childhood trauma?
An intrigue anchored in its decor
Such a long hatred is the eleventh novel by Martine Delomme. Each time, it is close to her heart to change region, so as not to be confined as a Gironde author. Each time, she visits, immerses herself in the local atmosphere, discovers an economic activity. After managing her small business for 25 years, she wants to highlight other local professions and uses them to create new universes in her books.
Do you like Sarlat? Do you like suspense novels? You will definitely like Such a long hatred by Martine Delomme published by Presses de la Cité
– City press