The Perfumist of Paris

The Perfumist of Paris is the final book in Alka Joshi's Jaipur trilogy. The trilogy began with The Henna Artist and last year The Secret Keeper of Jaipur was published. Perfumist was published on March 28, 2023 and it is the best book of the trilogy.  If you read the first two books in the series you will remember that it is about two sisters, Lakshmi and Radha, and their "adopted" brother Malik. The Perfumist of Paris is Radha’s story.

The publisher's summary:  

Paris, 1974. Radha is now living in Paris with her husband, Pierre, and their two daughters. She still grieves for the baby boy she gave up years ago, when she was only a child herself, but she loves being a mother to her daughters, and she’s finally found her passion—the treasure trove of scents. 

She has an exciting and challenging position working for a master perfumer, helping to design completely new fragrances for clients and building her career one scent at a time. She only wishes Pierre could understand her need to work. She feels his frustration, but she can’t give up this thing that drives her.  

Tasked with her first major project, Radha travels to India, where she enlists the help of her sister, Lakshmi, and the courtesans of Agra—women who use the power of fragrance to seduce, tease and entice. She’s on the cusp of a breakthrough when she finds out the son she never told her husband about is heading to Paris to find her—upending her carefully managed world and threatening to destroy a vulnerable marriage.

I cannot speak more highly about this book.  I loved everything about it from the setting to the descriptions of scents that Radha considered for the perfume she was creating for an anonymous client. The client requested that this perfume be based on Manet's painting Olympia. Radha had many scents gathered onto her perfume organ including vetiver, sandalwood, roses, fig, keira, saffron, henna, geranium, honey, gardenia, cedar, myrrh, musk, frangipani, sage, orange blossom, damask rose, lavender, lily of the valley, lemon, bergamot, manger, pine needles, rosemary, chocolate, vanilla, clove, cardamon, juniper berry, and jasmine. What's a perfume organ? It's just the layout of the 300 scents Radha works with that give the appearance of a church organ. However, Radha knows that something is missing. She frequently visits the Manet painting in a nearby museum for inspiration but ultimately decides that the scent she is seeking can only be found in India: mitti attar a/k/a rain. Her boss approves her travel and Radha is soon reunited with her family in India. 

India has always been an exotic destination for me. The sights and sounds, always loud, never cease to captivate me. The descriptions of the food are just as enticing as the 300 scents that Radha uses in her daily work. Perfumist is a sensual book in this respect. While Perfumist can be read as a standalone novel, I recommend that you begin with the first book in the trilogy if you haven't read the series before. It will make more sense.  I thought the writing was superb. The first few pages had alot of backstory but this narrative had a hypnotic feel to it. 

This might be my book of the year for 2023. It's that good. I am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.