Literary Fiction Annotation - Briefly, A Delicious Life

 

Briefly, A Delicious Life

Authors: Nell Stevens

Publication Date: July 19, 2022

Number of Pages: 304

Geographical Setting: Mallorca - Balearic Islands - Spain

Time Period: 1830s

Series: N/A

Fourteen-year-old Blanca dies in a Mallorcan monastery in 1473. She’s still there nearly four hundred years later, observant and playful, haunting the monastery and nearby Valldemossa while watching out 

for her remaining descendant and getting some retribution on those who wronged her and others like her.

 New tenants move in, consisting of author George Sands, her two children, and her companion Frederic

 Chopin. George is boyish and bold and Blanca, long-dead and reflecting, falls in love.

 

Subject Headings: 

Fiction - literary, Fiction - historical, Love stories

Literary Appeal

Language/Style

The story is told in a style that is almost prose-like, told in vivid details and long, nearly meandering 

passages that immerses the reader slowly into Blanca’s world. The reader finds out Blanca’s whole story

 slowly as she observes the present, recollects the past, and even ventures forward into the future, so 

that the details are pieced together as the book progresses. 

Story Line

Most of the events in Briefly, A Delicious Life is told through recollecting the events of the past, with what

 happens in the present day taking place simply in the minds of the characters. This is a work more about

 reflection and what it means to fall in love rather than a piece with a great amount of activity in the story 

itself. 

Pacing

Blanca tells her story piece-by-piece so that the reader does not have the whole picture until near the end

 of the book. It is not a book that moves quickly, but rather one that draws the reader in with vivid bits of 

details. The prose style of the book lends itself to being read slowly, however, making the slower pacing 

work with the subject matter. 

Frame/Setting

Stevens immerses her readers in the setting of Mallorca in the winter in the late nineteenth century, full of

 details of the abandoned monastery and the cold and wet weather surrounding them. This is a perfect 

book for fans of historical fiction as well, with the rich atmospheric details of eighteen century village life in

 Spain painting the background 

3 Terms to Describe this Book:

Reflective, bittersweet, playful 

3 Fiction Recommendations

 

Sophie Mackintosh’s Cursed Bread is another work that immerses it’s reader in history (this time a small

 village in 1950s France) alongside complicated desire and genre-bending settings.

 

 Lauren Groff’s Matrix will bring fans of Briefly, A Delicious LIfe another serving of queer longing with 

prose-like writing, this time following the then-seventeen-year-old poet Marie de France in the late 12th 

century.

Another work that features historical ghosts, George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo is a must-read for

 literary fiction lovers with an interest in history. 

2 Nonfiction Recommendations

If Steven’s descriptions of Sand and Chopin were enough to make you want to find out more about the

 two and their short-lived relationship, check out Helen Farish’s Nocturnes at Night: The Decade of 

Chopin and Sand.

A Winter in Majorca offers a real-life counterpart to the novel, as an autobiography by George Sand 

chronically their stay at the charterhouse. It’s a perfect companion to those wanting to hear the events 

that inspired the book.

 

2 Nonbook Recommendations 

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a great movie to watch as a follow-up, keeping up with the same themes of 

historical romance following two women and the complications that arise. 

If you’re a fan of this book’s magical realism and discussion of love and grief, give the 1990 classic Truly,

 Madly, Deeply a try.