AN EVIDENCE

Agnès Martin-Lugand

(Michel Lafon, 380 pages, 2019)

*** TRANSLATION SAMPLE AVAILABLE ***

*** 80,000 COPIES SOLD IN THREE MONTHS ***

*** RIGHTS SOLD TO RUSSIA (CORPUS), ROMANIA (TREI),

CZECH REPUBLIC (ALBATROS), SLOVAKIA (ALBATROS),

BULGARIA (ERA), AND THE NETHERLANDS (XANDER) ***

Reine is living the perfect life, dividing her time between raising, as a single mom, her seventeen-year-old son Noé and her work as the co-owner of a successful communication agency located in Rouen. But this happiness is based on a lie, which, if revealed, could shatter her world.

 With Paul, Reine’s best friend and business partner, she is working on a new project for a client in Saint-Malo. On her first meeting with one of the owners, Pacôme, she feels immediately attracted to him, and ends up spending the night with him. In the morning they realize that this was a mistake; Pacôme is the ultimate bachelor, loving his freedom more than anything else, and Reine wants to focus on her son’s education. She reluctantly goes back to her routine but thinks about Pacôme more than she should.

On returning to Saint-Malo to meet with the other owner, Nicolas, who is Pacôme’s best friend, she realizes with stupefaction that Nicolas is her long-gone first love—and the father of her son. Nicolas, now happily married to Heloise and a father of two, is ecstatic to see her.

 Now Reine must reveal the secret she kept from her son and his dad. She had decided not to tell Nicolas that she was pregnant and later told Noé that she didn’t know who his father was, and she accepted the consequences of these omissions. Facing them now, she gets the support of Paul, her indefectible ally, and her family, but gets rejected by Noé, Nicolas, and Pacôme, who all cut ties with her.

 Noé runs away from home and finds refuge in Pacôme’s apartment in Saint-Malo, where the two get closer amid the storm.

 Will Reine be able to get her son back? Will Nicolas find the courage to forgive her and open his arms and heart to his son? What will happen with Pacôme? Why has Paul all of a sudden grown so distant?

 An Evidence is a moving, gripping, and suspenseful novel emphasizing the importance of family. Martin-Lugand has the talent to give her characters the humanity that makes readers feel alive and hopeful.

Agnès Martin-Lugand is a French writer of several novels. A psychology major, she turned to writing and self-published her first novel, Les gens heureux lisent et boivent du café (Happy People Read and Drink Coffee, published in the U.S. by Perseus Books), via Amazon’s Kindle platform. Rapidly noticed by literary bloggers, she was approached by Editions’ Michel Lafon, who proposed to publish the book. It became an instant best-seller and an international phenomenon. Martin-Lugand has become one of the best-selling authors in France. She has been translated into 34 languages. An Evidence is her seventh book.