A Sapphic ghost love story that follows the romance between George Sand and Chopin? I wanted to love this so much, but unfortunately it just fell flat for me and I found it a little dull.

Told from the perspective of Blanca, a 14 year old ghost who died centuries ago and has spent her existence since haunting the monks who live in the Charterhouse in Mallorca, amusing herself with petty little acts against them, the narrative switches back and forth between her life and death in 1473 and the events in the 19th century. George Sand, her two children and Frederic Chopin arrive to stay in the monastery to try and improve their health over the winter.

They immediately stand out as different, with Sand scandalising the small minded locals by wearing trousers and being unmarried, and Chopin scaring them all half to death with his ill health which they immediately put down to contagious consumption. Blanca falls in love with Sand, and becomes obsessed with the family. With an ability to insert herself into the mind of a living person and read their memories, she learns Sand's backstory - a woman before her time she doesn't seem to fit in anywhere, although has forged a successful career for herself as a writer. This is interspersed with the story of Blanca's untimely demise. Both women suffer at the hands of men, who cannot measure up to their expectations and needs and leave them craving the company of other women.

Not much actually happens throughout and the story is meandering and I found myself losing interest at parts and wanting to skip forward to the action, but no action really happens. The writing is beautiful at parts, but it wasn't enough to hold my attention fully. I don't mind books which are character driven rather than plot driven, but I didn't understand why Blanca had remained as a ghost when there appeared to be no other ghosts around, Sand frustrated me with her lackadaisical approach to life, Maurice was non-descript, Solange was a bit of a brat and Chopin only featured briefly to cough up blood then retreat weakly back into his room.

The ending was a bizarre contradiction of petering out and ending abruptly, and I was left wondering what the point of the whole book was.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: none
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

Never fall for men of artistic genius. They always end up boning down on your daughter.

In any case, this book is intriguing, but it had the problem you always get around the fictionalisation of real-life events—which is that life rarely offer satisfying conclusions. It just kinds of ends, and if you’re lucky something vaguely sensical can be shuffled from the leftovers.

Briefly, A Delicious Life, then, is a fictionalisation of the Withnail & I-esque holiday/honeymoon George Sand and Chopin attempted to take in Mallorca, and it’s narrated by the ghost of a 16th century girl who is haunting the rundown monastery where George and Chopin are staying. Blanca, our narrator, is in love with George, George and Chopin are, of course, in love with each other (for the moment), they’re also in love with art, and then there’s George’s two children to contend with. Add in Chopin’s whole dying-of-tuberculosis deal, the terrible weather, hostility from the Catholic locals who initially exploit and then attack the family and, well, it’s quite a story.

Although it’s a story that doesn’t … go anywhere. Or rather, it’s a story that ends with George and Chopin continuing with their lives because, well, see above re the problem of writing about real people. The book is, however, a fascinating character piece. I can’t really attest to its accuracy but given Chopin is kind of a pill and George is completely compelling I was personally convinced. Having Blanca for a narrator manages to give the book both a sense of intimacy and sense of expansiveness: she is able to directly access people’s thoughts, along with moments from their past and the full tapestry of their future. To some degree she is a little bit of a device, in that it means the book is never tied to a single time, place or POV, but her voice is incredibly engaging and her own small piece of history heartbreakingly banal—a necessary contrast to this story of grand passion between two extraordinary artists that has passed into legend.

I will also note that—unlike some mainstream reviewers—I appreciated the modernity of Blanca’s narration. The book is actually beautifully written: there’s a precision to the language that allows it to convey sensuality, bitterness, suffering, love absurdity, all with equal finesse.

“Chopin began to play. It was something he had begun working on in previous days: a dappled sunlight opening, a break in the clouds, a tentative ray touching the horizon. But the A-flat was running through it now, at first barely noticeable beneath the right hand’s melody, and then louder, increasingly insistent. It became the saddest sound I had ever heard: perhaps you are happy, the music said, and the A-flat, but what about this – this – this. I understood by then that Chopin’s music was the best of him. It was where his loveliness resided. All his better impulses, his tenderness and sadness were there, in safekeeping away from his body, unhampered by the sharp edges of pain and illness, crankiness and frustration and irritability.”

I honestly do know what is up with people that they’ll be, like, okay, 16th century ghost, seems legit, wait “tasked” has been used as a verb, THAT IS A BRIDGE TOO FAR.

Anyway, as you probably already tell, while the book is broadly a ghost story centred on a moment in the lives of two historical figures it has a lot to say about art, and love, and gender, and queerness. I was honestly ready to murder Chopin myself by the half way point. He’s not overtly terrible, really, but he has this absolute and unquestioned entitlement to both art and being cared for, whereas George stays awake deep into the night, because it’s the only time she can get for her own writing, and her own self-care, really. I mean, obviously, Chopin is terminally ill and (assuming we’re not still pretending that Chopin, the man who wrote sexy letters to other men, was definitely definitely uncontrovertibly straight in every way) queer, but there’s still this impossibly huge gulf between the way his music—his need for sex, attention, goat milk, the perfect piano—dominates the text, whereas George’s writing must always be tucked into the spaces around Chopin, motherhood, her other lovers, a need to support her family, and her place in society.

I did feel, perhaps, the book didn’t entirely know how to end itself or what to do with Blanca once she’d told her story (it’s certainly not a text interested in what it means that it has a ghost in it, which—honestly—is fair enough). Or perhaps it was just that the emotional intensity had reached such pitch, with Chopin finally able to piano and yet also about to die maybe and angry Catholics descending on the monastery, that a vague sense of anti-climax was inevitable. After all, as I pointed out in the opening of this review, that’s kind of the problem with life as a whole.

Still, an unusual and exquisitely told story that has done nothing to subdue my long-standing crush on George Sand.

4.0 out of 5 stars

Loved the ghost story twist

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 July 2022

I enjoyed this book although I found it a little slow in places.

I knew very little of George Sands or Chopin so it was interesting to read about their lives and I felt the side story of the ghost and her history was fascinating.

I was gifted a copy off this book to review

'Briefly, a Delicious Life' by Nell Stevens is gorgeous, just gorgeous, and effortlessly refreshing for the palette. If you've been disappointed in the fiction of 2022 so far, READ THIS (and the upcoming 'Small Angels' by Lauren Owen next month)! The piece doesn't read like a debut fiction novel. It's assured; it's resolved, forthright.

The story finds its gravitational pull in the figure of George Sand, who has brought Chopin to Mallorca for convalescence. In the figure of Sand, Stevens draws a character with intense conviction. I found there was no need - and no room - for questions of 'truthfulness' or faithfulness to history. I felt no need to ask whether the text aligned with fact; the meat of the story sufficed, refreshingly outstripping other recent novels based upon historical figures. This delivers what I hoped Lauren Groff's 'Matrix' was going to last year; it does what 'The Flames' by Sophie Haydock failed to do earlier this year; it does what 'The Language of Food' by Annabel Abbs did last autumn, only better, and more gorgeously; more deliciously.

Everything is seen, smelt, felt, heard and tasted by Blanca, our narrator.  All the senses are exploited here. 'Briefly, a Delicious Life' is all about how living FEELS; how it is experienced greatly and most vividly through the senses, rather than through thought, or philosophically:

'Other consoling sensations: the rasping tongue of a dog greeting its owner; tree bark against the palms of a young person climbing; the rippling orgasm of a woman who had discovered how to use her fingers for herself; salt on the lips of someone who has been swimming in the sea. I liked to feel the soft, humming fur of a cat being stroked. I liked the taste of wine.'

And whose is the titular delicious life? I'd argue for the deliciousness of Blanca's involvement in Sand's life during the years George Sand lives with Chopin and her own two children; the brief life that Blanca inhabits with George and through George, observing her, desiring her, experiencing sensation through her:

'I imagined how it would be to press myself against her, in between her toes, into the crook of her elbow, the crease between her nostril and her cheek, though I never quite dared try. Instead, I placed myself under the wet drip-drip-drip of the clothes on the branches and thought of all that could be done between two women in possession of bodies, what effects could be achieved with fingers and tongues.'

As I've said in other reviews, when a novel is published that accurately and fairly represents sexual attraction between women, its importance in and to the book world cannot be overestimated. 'Briefly, a Delicious Life' does that, and does it graciously and genuinely, or generously, or gorgeously, or all of the above.

Blanca's afterlife as a spirit able to inhabit people's minds to 'live' through their senses, also allows us to view their memories and, thus, read their histories through glimpses of their memory. As a plot device, this didn't make me uncomfortable. I can see how it might be jarring for some readers, such a convenient authorial contrivance as it is. But I find that I could reconcile that cost with the wealth that it reaps in terms of opportunities to explore physicality and sensuality. Basically, Blanca could take me anywhere she likes, as long as she keeps describing what she sees, feels, smells, tastes, and hears:

'I felt a wrench in the silence that followed. There was something about Chopin's music that lodged itself between your teeth - where teeth had been - or slipped through your ribs - where ribs had been - and became a new part of your body - where body had been. There was something about it that gave you a body to borrow, and let you live in it, briefly, extraordinarily.'

In this regard, I would say disregard the blurb about 'Briefly, a Delicious Life': phrases like 'emotionally moving' and 'surprisingly touching' fall far short of the mark for Stevens's fiction debut and, in my opinion, 'romantic fixation' is the very last thing I'd identify as its subject matter. The core of this piece of writing is the impact upon the mind of the physical senses, as all of the quotes above demonstrate. Stevens achieves this in a manner that's vivacious, hefty, absolute, not - as the blurb would have it - merely 'charming' and 'original'.

'Briefly, a Delicious Life' will be something I'll reread, and have as a fixture in the STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS section of the library.

My thank you Picador, Pan Macmillan, for an ARC in exchange for my review.

I had never seen anyone like her. That was the thing. No woman had ever been as definite, as robust. No woman, no man, nobody had ever been so much like themselves as she was.

Briefly, A Delicious Life
I received this advanced eBook reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ever since I became a reader for pleasure, I have had a fascination with queer Literature. For the purpose of clarity, I define queer Literature as anything with a direct focus on the lives and experience of folk not falling under heteronormative standards/ideals. Or, stories from folks fitting this description. I try not to be too academic or prescriptive when to comes to this, as ideas are constantly evolving and I view this inevitable progression as both interesting and beautiful.

I digress: with this in mind, the perspective of a lesbian ghost who has been haunting a monastery in Mallorca was certainly one I was immediately interested by.

But it was not one I imagined would be as compelling as it was in the end.

As aforementioned, the story is told from the point-of-view of fourteen-year-old Blanca who dies in 1473 in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Despite having the ability to move, she predominantly stays here, haunting the men who live there for their violence and unfair treatment of women. It makes for fairly interesting feminist reading, I tell you that.

I wish there was more of this throughout the story though; as Blanca becomes more fascinated and motivated by her love for George Sand – based on the nineteenth-century French writer of the same name – her focus on teaching a feminist lesson are somewhat dampened. This, I found slightly disappointing as the humour and approach Blanca took for this self-directed mission were highly amusing.

From the start of the novel, we are teased with the unsaid promise of a queer love story:

Of course, it wasn’t the first time I had seen two boys kissing.

Briefly, A Delicious Life. Literally the first line.
Whilst this depiction of George Sand’s crossdressing was playfully managed and interestingly revealed, I did find the ‘queerness’ somewhat disappointing.

But this did not last forever. As the story unfolds, readers are revealed numerous believed truths about George Sand’s probable bisexuality (including an alleged affair with an actress), as well as the fictionalised queerness of Blanca (yes, our in-house ghostly narrator. Or should that be in-monastery? You get the idea.)

Something which strikes me given my 2022 context is the likelihood of this becoming a Dark Academic classic of the near future. With its featuring of religion, Gothic tropes, mental health, illicit affairs and family secrets, it is simply screaming for a place in BookTuber 2022 Wrap Up videos. And, to be fair, I do think there is a place for it.

George can tolerate being married to a brute, or to a philanderer, but not to a fool. That is, surely, too much to bear.

Briefly, A Delicious Life
The historical accuracy too is appealing to fans of Dark Academia: medical accounts of cholera and consumption for example were interesting to read about in this fictional setting. There is also something satisfying about feeling like you have truly learnt something from a book: a history not-yet discovered, like that of George Sand and the composer Chopin.

All of this said, however, the most interesting character I found was actually that of Solange: George Sand’s daughter. A child for the majority of the story, it is through this character that Stevens explores the topics of mental health, parental trauma and unlikely sexual exploration.

‘My little black cloud,’ George would say, looping Solange’s hair through her fingers as the child was falling asleep. It took me some time to understand this was intended as a term of endearment. Maurice was always: ‘my little cub’, ‘my bear’; Solange: ‘cloud’,‘thunder’,‘little tempest’. How many times do you have to call a cloud a tempest before it turns stormy?

Briefly, A Delicious Life
Without spoiling too much, it would be an understatement to say that Solange’s character is interesting. It is more than that: it is revealing. With the reader’s natural inclination to relate to and sympathise with Solange as a child, her journey becomes all the more jarring and subversive as she grows older.

Ultimately, I gave this book 4/5 stars. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and think it will become a favourite for many people. The historian in me was both fascinated and ashamed that I had not heard of George Sand before so this book allowed me to delve more into her very interesting life, something I would definitely be interested in reading more about.

For characterisation, historical appreciation and angry feminist ghosts, I would recommend ‘Briefly, A Delicious Life’ wholeheartedly.

Probably 3.5 stars rather than 3. Drawing the thread through centuries from the original life of the monastery to the "present" of the world of Chopin and Sands' holiday retreat via a child ghost narrator is a beguiling narrative conceit. It suits the sensory and sensual world of the novel. The ghost narrator leads the reader by the hand with curiosity and intrigue unfettered by life but deeply feeling nonetheless. Stevens' writing is elemental and sensory, without straying into grandiloquence. I really felt transported to the misery of the unwelcoming village, the highs and lows of love, attraction, crushes, and passion. I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely adored this novel, such an original concept. I didn’t know much about the relationship between George Sand and Chopin but what I learned here inspired me to do a lot more research. Blanca is my favourite original character in a long time (although a very different story, I felt the same way about her as I did Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi) and I absolutely loved her voice. I would say I didn’t personally get as much of a queer love story as I think the author intended but I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

An evocative slice of historical fiction, as the ghost of a young woman watches over George Sand and Chopin. Richly imagined. I particularly enjoyed the passages about Blanca, the ghost’s, life and the events leading to her death.

Thank you for the copy in exchange for a review!
I was really excited about this, as it told the story of Chopin and George Sand when they were together. This is something I found quite interesting, especially with the added element of the narrator being a dead girl who has been stuck as a ghost for the last 300 years. I really enjoyed the different points of view but I found some parts were really strange and not executed too well.
I absolutely loved the ending, I thought it tied off nicely and it was also nice to find out what happens to the characters in the future (but more humanised than just reading about their past on Wikipedia). The author did a great job of humanising these already famous characters.

I would most likely pick this up in a bookstore as I did find it enjoyable and I would recommend.

Briefly, A Delicious Life is a beautifully spooky, mysterious novel full of joy and sadness, love and loss. It’s a gorgeous depiction of the human experience and I loved it.

Blanca, a centuries-old teenage ghost, immediately falls for the beautifully strange George Sand after she arrives, dressed like a man, at the remote Charterhouse which Blanca inhabits, with Chopin and her children in tow. What ensues is a simultaneously haunting and amusing journey through the characters’ pasts, presents, and beyond.

In 19th Century Mallorca, the locals have a deep distrust for this odd, foreign family. Beginning with a simple desire for peace and better health in the Mediterranean air after the wild days of their lives in Paris, their experience becomes something else entirely.

With prose which flows effortlessly in short, fast-paced chapters, a narrator who is one of my new favourite characters, and a whole lot of sapphic yearning, I will undoubtedly be making this novel my whole personality for the foreseeable future.

This novel does contain some difficult subject matter, so please check trigger warnings before reading.

(ARC received from Picador via NetGalley)

Happy pub day to this strange and wonderful novella. If you are looking for a hot, sad, little bit spooky little bit sexy little bit intellectual beach read then may I please introduce you to ‘Briefly, A Delicious Life’ by Nell Stevens.

The story follows George Sands escape to Mallorca with Chopin and her young children and features angry villagers, androgynous dressing and a queer ghost with the hots for George Sand.

Our narrator Blanca died in 1473, aged 14, and has mostly haunted the ancient monastery in her sleepy village ever since, roaming in isolation that is equal parts lustful and vengeful until quite unexpectedly, writer George Sand arrives with her ailing love and creative counterpart Chopin.

Blanca spends the winter swimming in and out of the family’s feelings and memories as she miserably watches the “queer” french city folk become demonised by the locals, all while Blanca falls even more in love with George.

The descriptions of desire and misery are indeed delicious and it was fun to lose myself in the doomed adventures of Paris’ creative aristocracy. Both light and a little haunting, it’s a true weirdo summer read.

Briefly, A Delicious Life is published today via Picador Books.

I absolutely loved this beautiful book. The language Stevens use is so vivid and striking throughout the novel. I felt this was a unique story with such an interesting perspective; written from the point of view of the ghost of a teenage girl from centuries past who falls in love with the writer George Sands and her family (including her lover, the composer Chopin) when they move to Mallorca. There are some absolutely stunning descriptions, particularly when Stevens describes nature, scenery, and Chopin's music.

I also really enjoyed how the book switches between POV's and timelines as we gradually build up a picture of both George's past and Blanca's (the ghost), learning about the struggles they've been through, their relationships, their loves, and also the circumstances of Blanca's death. This switching between multiple perspectives kept me intrigued and turning the page to discover more about these women.

One of my favourite things about this novel, was the way in which Stevens deals with identity and the prospect of being different and going against "social norms". I adore the character of George and how she goes through life doing what she wants, dressing how she wants, and behaving how she wants, blissfully unaware and unbothered by how other people view her. Stevens really digs into the treatment of women in particular, criticising how they are treated in a patriarchal society, both through the representation of George and her daughter, as well as the storyline involving Blanca and her pregnancy which ultimately ends in tragedy,

Though there are many serious and painful issues present throughout the narrative, there are also so many joyous moments of love and humour. I found this book to be an utterly bewitching and unique experience!

I wanted this book to grip my heart the way the premise did, but ultimately it felt underwhelming, which I think came down to the characters. They fell flat and I was never made to care for them.

Briefly, A Delicious Life is a novel that centres around an unconventional family who have just arrived in Mallorca in 1838. They have arrived in the pursuit of wellness, and find themselves living in an old monastery which just so happens to be haunted by our protagonist, Blanca. Blanca is the ghost of a teenage girl who was once enamoured with beautiful men, but who in death has allowed her focus to fall on beautiful women instead. The mother of the family, George, is a woman who dresses in men's clothes, smokes cigars and writes books. Blanca loves her immediately and follows George and her family, looking after them, travelling with and inside of them so that she too can feel the sensations that come with having a body which she has almost forgotten in her hundreds of years of being a ghost.

Stevens' stark and direct prose is beautiful. It delivers her unusual story with the ease of a much more experienced author. After the first few chapters, I had already stopped and reread a number of sentences and paragraphs.
There was so much promise in the beginning, and the premise of the story was so unusual, so different than anything I've read before, but unfortunately my interest waned a little toward the middle of the story. Much of what had made the story interesting seemed to have stagnated. Some of the characters were so richly developed, but others I lost and jumbled inside my mind. The story while interesting often seemed like snippets of different lives, rather than a fully fleshed out story. While there are things that happen, it feels as though the story never really moves anywhere. I normally enjoy books that are character driven rather than fully story driven, but I didn't feel that the characters were full enough or felt enough to truly feel myself engaged. There are also some questions left unanswered, which I won't discuss for fear of spoilers, but which made the story seem unfinished or not fully thought through. There's a change of pace toward the end which feels a little jarring in comparison to the slower pace of the book prior to that.

With all of that said, I enjoyed this book but I can't say that I loved it. I'll remember the story for one of the more unusual concepts and am glad to have had the opportunity to read it. Sadly, it won't quite make it to my favourites shelf, but I would be sincerely interested to read what Stevens writes next.

I adored this - beautifully written, utterly compelling and so original, with a really rich cast of characters and a perfectly drawn Mallorcan setting.

The writing style was good, interesting chapter names as this was a unique element of this novel.

We are taken to Mallorca where this ghost has been stuck for so many years watching the lives of those that has came and gone. Has literally ‘entered’ their body to feel what they feel. The setting of this novel was unique although it did feel a bit creepy at times. There is a lot of potential with the family in where I think this novel could have explored more instead of being stuck in the same frame. Yet, at the same time the consistency was a bit wish-washy.

Usually a novel has a beginning, middle and an end. The middle is supposed to have the whole build up of something that needs to overcome however there really isn’t much going on.

The main story line the ghost follows in this novel is of this boy dressed looking woman named George who I really wasn’t interested in at all, her children and Chopin who I think is her friend? He is dying and composes music and the plot just seemed to drag so much.

Overall I need a novel that is actually moving forward as a novel is supposed to be. Plus, characters usually develop and grow however in this one nothing really happens.

This inventive take on Chopin and George Sands told from the point of view of a Spanish ghost trapped in a nunnery is a fun, intriguing love story — thoughtfully and passionately told.

A haunting and enchanting story. I love the way this book drags you in. So beautiful and tragic at times.
I have to say that I haven't read a story as original as this in a long time.
It's so fun to naviagte through the story!

This is delicious and strangely compelling. A ghost, Chopin and George Sand all together in Mallorca. Just give it a go.

An ambitious story about a horny, lonely ghost who becomes obsessed with George Sand and her family. The ghost can also dive into peoples memories and somehow see the future. There’s a lot of time hopping which for me became a bit tedious and sometimes hard to follow.
The ending kind of lost the run of itself for a bit, becoming slightly “and then, and then, and then…”
All that being said, it’s a fun and entertaining read but I don’t think it should be taken too seriously.