Tata

July 2026 Indie Next Pick
Publishers Weekly Most Anticipated Book

Valérie Perrin's First New Novel since her breakout bestseller Fresh Water for Flowers

"Valérie Perrin is a prodigious storyteller."--Elle 

"Tata is Perrin's most ambitious, most intimate, most liberating, most important book yet."--Le Parisien

When Agnes hears from the local police her Aunt Colette has died, she can't believe her ears.  Her father's sister Colette, her Tata, died three years ago and has been resting in peace in the cemetery of Gueugnon.

Agnes is called to identify the body: there is no doubt, it's Aunt Colette. But then, who rests under the stone engraved with Colette's name? And why did she fake her own death? So begins an investigation back in time, as Agnes pieces together the multitude of stories that lie behind her aunt's second death.      

An intricate, compelling web of stories told with irony, delicacy and depth, Tata will keep readers glued to every page.

★ "A bewitching novel about found family and the transformative power of love."--Foreword Reviews (starred)

Valérie Perrin was born in 1967 in Remiremont, in the Vosges Mountains, France. She grew up in Burgundy and settled in Paris at the age of nineteen. The international success of her novels Forgotten on Sunday, Fresh Water for Flowers, Three, and Tata has made her one of the most widely read and most beloved French authors in the world. Fresh Water for Flowers (Europa, 2020) won the Maison de la Presse Prize, the Paperback Readers Prize, and was named an ABA Indies Introduce and Indie Next List title. It has been translated into forty languages. In Italy, both Fresh Water for Flowers and Tata (Europa, 2026) were the bestselling books of their respective publication years. In 2025, readers of ELLE named Perrin one of their top ten favorite French authors of all time. Perrin now lives in Paris.