The Memory of Lavender

Reyes Monforte, author of A Burka for Love and A Russian Passion, returns with a great novel about loss, grief, love and hope.

"I died on May 3rd. That day I stopped breathing, feeling, hearing, thinking, laughing. The best thing that can happen to you in life is to love and be loved. And losing that feeling is much more painful than never having it."

Two months after Jonas's death, Lena, a professional photographer, gathers the courage to fulfill her husband's last wish: to scatter his ashes in the lavender fields in the heart of Alcarria. There she meets Jonas's group of friends, including Daniel, his first cousin, a priest with whom she shares feelings of love and loss, and who keeps many silences to himself.

However, just as affections are inherited, so are hatreds. Lena will have to deal with the threatening presence of her brother-in-law Marco, an envious and mean man who is not willing to respect her grief. Coinciding with the Lavender Festival, she will remember her love story with Jonas and everything he took with him, strengthen friendships and reveal family secrets hidden for too long.

The critics have said...
"Despite the continuous and accurate tension that makes us return to our own wounds, its reading, so intimate, is dominated by a celebration of life, even if the magical thought of what might not have happened floats throughout the story. [...] The author manages to tell from the gut what has been told a thousand times in such a primitive and intimate way as her own pain with a highly cinematic structure, as hurtful as it is balsamic. And she gets it absolutely right."
Ángeles Lopez, La Razón

In the blogs...
"The Memory of Lavender is a logbook to go through grief, which brings us closer to each other, which strips us of banalities, which humanizes us and makes us equal. I have left this trip to Tármino wanting to visit the lavender fields and visit Jonas and tell him that I, like Lena, will never forget him."
Blog Lecturápolis