Forgotten on Sunday

Perrin (Water for Flowers) offers a lively if overwrought dual narrative involving a nursing assistant and a resident at a nursing home in rural France. Justine Neige, 21, "love two things in life: music and the elderly." Deriving great satisfaction from her work at the nursing home, she takes unpaid overtime to provide the residents with additional care. Justine is especially drawn to Helene Hel, 96, who gradually reveals the tragic story of her lover's disappearance during WWII, which Justine diligently records in a blue notebook. Justine has her own sorrowful history: her parents, aunt, and uncle died in a mysterious car accident when she was five. As Perrin fills in the details of the women's stories, other questions arise in the present-day timeline: who is the man Justine regularly sleeps with, whose name she doesn't bother to learn? And who is placing calls to the relatives of unvisited nursing home residents--those "forgotten on Sunday"--falsely informing them that the residents have died? What begins as a lighthearted feel-good story becomes unwieldy and melodramatic as Justine pieces together the answers to her questions about Helene's life, the reasons behind her family's fatal accident, and the phone caller's motives. This one doesn't quite gel. (June)

Someone is making nasty crank calls to the families of residents of the Hydrangeas care home. The calls inform the families that their loved one has died and asks them to come the next day to collect the body. However, the alleged dead are all in fact still alive, and the calls are only made to the families who have never visited the Hydrangeas. This is not the only mystery in the little French village. While aiding the police with their investigation into the calls, Justine Neige, a 21-year-old nursing assistant at the home, discovers startling evidence about the car crash that killed her parents and her aunt and uncle some years ago, leaving her and her cousin in the care of their grandparents. All the while, another story unfolds for Justine--that of her favorite resident, the almost-centenarian Hélène, who recounts the many adventures of her long life, including one great love, for Justine to record and share with Hélène's survivors. VERDICT The many admirers of Perrin's previous novel, Fresh Water for Flowers, will be equally charmed by this beguiling tale. All other readers might be doubly rewarded.--Barbara Love