the characters were interesting but not in a sense of them being memorable characters you will think about for years to come, more in a combined-with-a-smart-narrative-structure sorta way. Sand emerges as a fascinating figure, a pioneer who fought to carve out space for her creativity and independence. Blanca died in 1473, aged 14, and in the subsequent three-and-a-half centuries stuck on the island has discovered a diverting ability. And yet none of it comes together to form a story that is in any way rewarding or gratifying to read.

After all, as I pointed out in the opening of this review, that’s kind of the problem with life as a whole.

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. Briefly, A Delicious Life is a novel that should, by all accounts, be good; it has so much potential.

I didn’t feel enough for the characters and, in a book like this, once I’d decided that, there was no real hope for it. A young woman, very red-faced and sweaty from the climb, attempted to control a girl of around ten years old, who was spinning on the worn-down steps so that her skirts blew out.Stevens imagines that the monastery where they stay is still haunted by Blanca, a teenager who died in childbirth (having been impregnated by one of the trainee monks) there in 1473. The narrator navigates a path between an obsessive work ethic and a highly developed capacity for distraction, a scorn for the trappings of heterosexual marriage and a desire to settle down. I will also note that—unlike some mainstream reviewers—I appreciated the modernity of Blanca’s narration. Stevens appeared on BBC Radio 4's Open Book in January 2023, where she and Tom Crewe "discuss[ed] drawing creatively on marginal - and radical - LGBTQ voices from the 19th century". Which, when you think about it, is one way of describing love: recognizing where another's loveliness resides.

Aside from Blanca the ghost, there is a clear historical foundation for many, if not most, of the scenes in this book: Chopin's music pieces, Sand's writing and affairs, the family's stay in Mallorca, the antipathy they encountered there. as she tells us about these peculiar people, she also relays to us the story of her short life over 400 years prior. He pointed at the portraits of the Madonna that lined the walls of the Charterhouse corridors: canvas after canvas of broad, white foreheads, beatific smiles, occasional exposed breasts proffered to babies with the faces of old men. As she removed a handkerchief, a single moth fluttered up from the case so it looked, for a second, as though the cloth itself was taking off.Stevens tempers this excitement with tragedy, and Briefly, A Delicious Life is also about the ways a body can betray a person, especially a woman. Speaking of plots, if you like stories where there isn’t that clear a narrative direction, where it really is just about characters living, then this would be one for you. Oh, and the ending was so clumsy and anticlimactic; it felt like it undermined what was already a very shaky story to begin with. The hand was very pale, as though it rarely saw the sun, and surprisingly broad below a narrow, snappable wrist.

Charming, original, and emotionally moving, this “deeply wild debut follows the unconventional love triangle” ( Cosmopolitan) between George, Chopin, and Blanca—a gorgeous and surprising exploration of artistry, desire, and life after death. Having laid out all my issues with A Briefly, A Delicious Life, I think its fundamental lack of dynamic narrative and character arcs stems from the fact that it's a novel based on real historical events. Cell Three had, in recent years, been the busiest part of the Charterhouse, a place that was, admittedly, not known to be busy at all. She especially loves playing the mischievous poltergeist with her enemies, including a certain monk whose role in the mystery of her early death becomes clearer as the text unfolds, and as she describes using her limited powers to tip urine on him, hide octopus tentacles behind his shelf, and shout ‘Mary doesn’t like you!

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. Stevens' depiction of her characters' stay on Mallorca is pretty much the opposite of a delicious life, although it leads to a happy awakening for her queer ghost.