Daphne has a skill with making beauty products, when a chance takes her to Paris in the mid 1950s, a young village girls dream becomes a reality and her dreams becomes reality.
Sixty years later and everyone knows the name Daphne Le Marche, through the products she has created as well as the actions and affairs of her children and grandchildren.
With her time now at an end Daphne is determined to bring a fractured family together and surprises everyone with her last will and testament. No one could have predicted what her last requests would have been especially her family.
From the corners of the globe, cousins, mothers, daughters and fathers are thrown together to continue the Le Marche name and brand. Will the future be able to hold onto the past or will they be able to build on it and move forward.
This is a story of how family secrets can destroy a family as well as bring them together. Forster has created some characters that you want to get behind and hope they get their happy ending, like Camille and Billie. But with balance she creates, obnoxious pig-headed arrogance in Robert who I could happily have strangled. Others may have had more patience than me.
I particularly liked the dual narrative in this book, when we taken to Paris in the 1950s as events unfolded in the present day, we were slowly filled in on the past of Daphne Le Marche and what made her the formidable woman that she was right up to the last will that she wrote.
A lovely example of Kate Forster’s writing which draws you with the characters and the story, the only small confusion I had was struggling to pin down where the modern-day story was taking place, it seemed to flit between too many places within a few pages. However, the characters kept you reading.
An engaging read.
Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.
The Last Will and Testament of Daphne Le Marche is out on 8th September.
Catch up on my reviews for Kate Forster’s other novels
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