We Were the Salt of the Sea by Roxanne Bouchard

Translated by David Warriner

Congratulations Karen Sullivan and Orenda Books, yet again you keep delivering some of the best books of the year and here with We Were the Salt of the Sea by Roxanne Bouchard is another example. To start with, the cover is just incredible it is eye catching and also ties in with the storyline. I just love this book. When I head to the sea in the summer this book is coming with me it needs to be read with the smell of the sea and wind in your hair. The writing is just incredible it sails beautifully, as Roxanne Bouchard describes the landscape and the sea. You can almost taste the salty sea air as you read the amazing prose.

More a crime and also a mystery novel that I think makes this book stand out. Set in Canada and in the sleepy fishing village of Gaspé Peninsula. Catherine Day has left her home in Montreal to this fishing village to try and find her mother but a dead woman identified as Marie Garant is pulled from the sea. Now Detective Sergeant Joaquin Morales new to the area has to solve the mystery of the death of Marie Garant. A woman who was beautiful yet both liked and also mistrusted by the local fishing community, and a death at sea always shakes the village but the death of Marie Garant has rocked this sleepy fishing village.

For Catherine Day who is seeking to find her mother, she soon realises that all is not well as the locals seem to have taken a dislike to her mother. But Catherine is looking for something more than just her mother, she is looking to find something else answers deep within herself she seems a soul lost. There was something about Catherine that I really liked and just the way that Roxanne Bouchard creates characters and brings then alive, to me really makes this a stand out novel. Character creation in any novel is really important and Roxanne seems to have found a way of weaving a story of the sea and clever interplay between them.

This may be a crime and a mystery novel but here is a book that actually really got to me, at times I was so consumed by the writing and also the story really touched me. The story flows like a calm sea and the translation by David Warriner is just outstanding. We Were the Salt of the Sea is another Orenda Books success story. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

300 Pages.

Thank you Karen Sullivan for the advanced review copy of We Were the Salt of the Sea.

We Were the Salt of the Sea by Roxanne Bouchard is published by Orenda Books and is published on 30^th March and will be available through Waterstones, Amazon and all good bookshops.