- Publisher
- Corvus / Atlantic Books
- Pages
- 416
- ISBN
- 978-0857897602
- First Published
- 2012
2012 · Historical Fiction
The Perfume Garden
A sweeping tale of secrets, scents, and a legacy hidden beneath the terracotta roofs of Spain.
New York · Valencia
Shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year and published in nine languages, The Perfume Garden follows perfumer Emma Temple as she inherits a crumbling Spanish villa and unravels the wartime love story buried within its walls.
An Excerpt
“The scent reached her before the house did — jasmine and bitter orange, sun-warmed stone, and underneath it all something older, like a letter unopened for half a century.”
About the Story
Inside The Perfume Garden
When perfumer Emma Temple inherits a crumbling villa in the Valencian hills, she travels south expecting to settle an estate and return to London within a week. Instead she finds a garden seeded with the scents of another life, and a stack of letters whose ink has not faded.
Half a century earlier, in the last days of the Spanish Civil War, a young Englishwoman arrives at the same villa carrying secrets of her own. As Emma follows the trail of jasmine, neroli and tobacco flower through the rooms, the two stories begin to braid into one.
Rich with the sensory world of the perfumer's atelier, The Perfume Garden is a novel about inheritance — of houses, of fragrances, and of the loves we are quietly handed across generations.
Best Reviews
Selected from press and readers
“Sun-drenched, sensuous and utterly transporting.”
“A beautifully written, atmospheric novel of love and legacy.”
“Lord Brown writes scent the way other novelists write light.”
Reader Reviews
Read every verified reader review for The Perfume Garden on Amazon.
Themes
- Inheritance
- Scent & Memory
- Spanish Civil War
- Mother & Daughter
A Note from Kate
Written after a long correspondence with a perfumer in Grasse, the novel began as a single image: a shuttered villa, and the smell of jasmine drifting through a broken window.
