Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens is a story about a ghost who becomes obsessed with George Sands. George is Frederic Chopin's lover. When George, her two children, and Chopin move into a monastery in Mallorca, the ghost Blanca falls in love with her. This story was somewhat interesting because of the historical references to Frederic Chopin. However, I didn't really connect with any of the characters or the actual story. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

I was so so into this book. Historical sapphic fiction is a perfect intersection and I was overjoyed to receive this ARC. I've reread it since last year and it continues to entice. I really enjoy this book.

one of the most beautiful books that I read in 2022. the writing was lush and provocative, and it is a book that I will be thinking about for quite a long time. I cannot wait to see what Nell Stevens does next, and I can only hope that it is as amazing as this book. The different timelines were mixed together well, and the point of view was unique and insightful.
thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

A revamped twist of the classic gothic literature format, a tale of paranormal and sapphic unrequited love. This one was wild and I really liked the way Stevens mixed the two story lines of George’s current life and Blanca’s past life. Perfect read for fall/halloween season highly recommended for fans of Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter and classic gothic lit. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Scribner for the e-book!

I'm starting to realize that historical fiction is not my thing. I really liked the vibe/tone of this novel. And I also really liked the main character. She had a bright and curious voice, even though she's a ghost. If you love historical fiction, then you'll devour this. I was mostly confused and struggled through this. I wish this book would've been set in present times.

Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens is an achingly beautiful and unconventional ghost story told from the perspective of a ghost named Blanca who haunts a monastery in Mallorca. The story chronicles her life over the centuries as she watches people’s private moments.

However, her afterlife gets more interesting when the famous novelist George Sand and the pianist Chopin move into the monastery.

I’d certainly categorize this one more as an introspective literary novel than a plot-oriented story. It focuses first and foremost on the characters themselves and Blanca’s musings and observations about life, but it does this poignantly and well.

All in all, I found this to be a truly unique story brimming with yearning that wonderfully blends together the historical alongside the supernatural.

Nell Stevens' debut novel draws upon the time Frederic Chopin and George Sand (and her two children) spent in Mallorca Spain during the winter of 1838-1839. It was not a pleasant holiday but rather a daily fight against the cold and damp and the increasing hostility of the locals.

Stevens uses a unique literary device - Blanca, a long-dead teenage ghost who becomes enamoured with George - to tell their stories, and hers. It allows the author to give us George's imagined inner thoughts and demons, tidbits into what Chopin's creative process might feels like, the feeling of the locals who are appalled by this unmarried couple bringing disease (Chopin's TB) into their world and so on.

Stevens' writing is beautiful and well-crafted and in one sense you could continue to read the story in the same way the ghostly Blanca wanted to attach herself to George - forever. However, if you know nothing of Chopin or Sands, there is little character development within the book and Blanca is similarly lightly defined. Having had limited experience in her "real life," Blanca is able to decipher emotions and actions as an observer only.

We learn of Blanca's death eventually as well as an account of what happens in the future for Chopin and Sands and her children. Blanca serves well as a device to give insight and offer a different perspective, but by its very nature, it's difficult to turn off this device and allow the book to come to a natural end. The awkwardness and abruptness, for me, led to a quick and unsatisfying conclusion. 3.5 stars.

In this gorgeous historical ghost story, a fourteen-year-old girl who died in the fifteenth-century is enamored by a new woman who arrives at the hilltop monastery she's been haunting since her death. This woman, the author George Sand, wears trousers like a man and shocks the conservative inhabitants of Mallorca. I really enjoyed this novel and how the story of Blanca's life and death in the 1400s is interwoven with the arrival of George 400 years later. A sort of alternate history with a supernatural twist.

The ghost of a teenage girl has haunted a monastery in Mallorca for centuries, but when writer George Sand, composer Frederic Chopin, and Sands two children come to stay there, she falls in love with George Sand, and that changes everything for her. A weird premise for a novel, but the writing is gorgeous and the characters are very rich. Nineteenth century Mallorca comes to life in this book, and Chopin's music is beautifully described.

Conceptually I was intrigued by this: Fictionalized biography meets antics of a friendly ghost. In practice, it’s a bit underwhelming, though not entirely without merit.

The danger of fictionalized biography is always the difficult task of toeing the line between the ennui of an account mostly summarizing what we all know to be true and the disingenuousness of too much dramatic license.

What we get here doesn’t really do justice to the story of Sand and Chopin, and because we know a fair amount about their time in Majorca, it’s tough to dream up much additional material. Hence, the ghost girl, no doubt intended to flesh out a story that otherwise didn’t really need reimagining.

The way that the ghost twines herself into the lives of the family and the town is well-conceived and well-executed. This was a clever premise and held great promise for livening up the story. Unfortunately it never really goes anywhere that feels particularly gripping or meaningful, and the tragic nature of the ghost’s death casts a pall over the narrative, which is clearly aiming to take a lighter tone.

Part of the problem is that the ghost (and by extension, the author) isn’t nearly as funny as she thinks she is. Blanca is at least likable though, which helps salvage a lot of otherwise grating inner monologue.

The fact that Sand wrote an autobiographical novel about her time in Majorca further renders this one unnecessary. If you just can’t get enough of Sand and Chopin, I suppose this is one more fictional access point to their story. But I recommend reading Sand’s A Winter in Majorca instead.

I had never heard of George Sand before this book, and now I am gleefully reading her Wikipedia article and requesting her books through Interlibrary Loan, so I have Nell Stevens to thank for that.

This is an incredibly interesting novel that focuses on two historical figures, one of whom I knew nothing about, and the other who I knew very little about! “Briefly, A Delicious Life” takes place in 1838, when Frederic Chopin and George Sand arrive in Mallorca with George’s two children. They take up residence at the Valldemossa Charterhouse, where they are observed by resident ghost and narrator, Blanca.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that uses a ghost to narrate historical events. Blanca was the perfect character to do it. Though Blanca died when she was fourteen, she’s been inhabiting the charterhouse for more than three hundred years. Stevens perfectly balances her voice between juvenile and sage, perfect for an eternal teenager. The book splits its time between Blanca’s past and Chopin and Sand’s present. Admittedly I was much more invested in Blanca. The events that led to her death were much more interesting than Sand and Chopin’s seemingly aimless arc. While George is an engaging character, Chopin is not. Maybe that’s because the real Chopin was also terrible, but he was annoying, self-centered, and self-pitying, made worse by Blanca’s unrestricted access to his thoughts. Sand gets more Grace because of Blanca’s huge crush on her (and here I will say, in case you missed it, that this book’s main character is a gay ghost).

The book generates a lot of suspense and you get the sense while reading that you’re hurtling towards something. There is no payoff for this. It’s the narrative equivalent of making it to the top of a roller coaster and then never going over the drop. It struggles to end itself, with major shifts not properly accounted for. I was expecting fifty more pages of book than I was given and it was really disappointing.

If I were to describe this book in as few words possible I'd say Melancholy Sapphic Ghost story. Blanca, our main character, dies in the 1400s and roams the earth as a ghost, observing and influencing the living people that pass through her home town as time passes. We go back and forth seeing her time alive as well as the lives of the people she follows to the "present" of a family that she observes. We see as she falls in love with George Sand, a woman who moves with her family to Blanca's town when she was alive. Throughout the novel, I kept wondering if Blanca would be seen or if the family would help her get to an afterlife where she wouldn't be a ghost. I loved how the author dives into the complexity of every family member, showing how they are all still good and complex despite their flaws. I also loved the depiction of the beauty of Blanca's situation, constantly falling in love but always being unable to receive love. It was described as meloncoly beauty at one point, which I feel perfectly encapsulates the entire novel. However while it was beautifully written, I felt the pacing confused me at times, especially at the end I was lost on the back and forth. I felt parts of the story felt dragged and confusing. I also felt the ending few lines took me out of the story and very overdone. I won't say what they are for spoiler reasons but I felt such a strong story deserved a stronger ending. The ending overall felt very messy and I could tell the author wasn't sure how to wrap up a story where a ghost lives forever. Spoiler alert, the part where we see George's death would have made a very strong ending for the story. Instead we go on and move back to the rest of the story and it gets very messy and weaker. However while the ending was weak in my opinion, I still felt it was a beautiful story and had very powerful writing in general.

I loved the writing style/tone of this book, but this book was also WEIRD! I loved the ghost concept, I love lesbians, I love a period piece. The unreliable 1st person narrator who could simultaneously share the thoughts of the other characters was very cool and definitely kept me on my toes. I couldn't get passed the 14 year old ghost falling in love with this milf though, nor could I get over the glorification of non-consensual touching, even if it was done by a ghost, and even if she did acknowledge that she was a "creep." But alas, I was super engaged in the book and found it really interesting and unique. And like I said, Stevens' writing style is superb.

Thank you, Scribner and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens!!! Grab a copy at your local bookstore today!!!

14-year-old Blanca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca, Spain, in 1473. For hundreds of years, she surveys the town and its inhabitants, helplessly watching the lives (and secrets) of the living unfold, while simultaneously reflecting on the factors of her own death. A bizarre and beautifully creative story of unrequited yearning that moves back and forth between the 15th and 19th centuries, exploring the limitations of women, character studies, and the actual love affair between Aurore Dupin and Frédéric Chopin. Stevens’ writing is stark and intriguing, complex and nuanced —simply a captivating read.

This was one of those books that I'm not sure how I feel about after finishing it. I enjoyed the story told by Blanca, our centuries-deceased ghost living in Charterhouse, and thought the idea of the story was unique and intriguing. Blanca was funny, insightful, and had so much love to give. I think where the story fell flat for me was the romance between George and Chopin, being that there wasn't much of it. It seemed like they had no chemistry and they were simply together for the sake of being two strange people in a relationship. Chopin was an annoying man-child most of the time. George was more complex and I found that I could understand and relate to her more. The only other issue was that some of the language and attitudes held by the characters seemed a bit more progressive than the period of time suggests they would be. Other than that, I did like the story overall.

I LOVE this book. Blanca was such an engaging narrator and I loved getting to see the world through her eyes. I also really enjoyed how the rest of the novel came to life. I could definitely picture it as a movie. It was very poetically tragic. Honestly such a ride every single page, but totally worth it

WHAT I LIKED:
The first chapter was excellent. It really set the scene for the rest of the book.
I like how real Blanca felt, even as she was dead.
It was nice how the paranormal things were treate dlike something happening day to day.
The details were so poetic and vivid.
So much of the book was hilarious and so much of it was sad. It was perfect balance of tone
This one was a book were I appreciated the unlabelled portrayal of bisexuality/Blanca being some kind of sapphic becasue she died young and probably didn't understand it herself since it was in the past and she didn't have a lot of vocabulary for things
I appreciate how the book handled a lot of heavy topics because it didn't gloss over them but it didn't dwell on them either. it definitely felt like we were looking through a teenager's perspective on awful things. It also never felt patronizing in being like "THIS IS BAD AND WRONG" it just heavily implied it so we were able to obviously jump to the conclusion ourselves.
I could feel the yearning through the pages. It made me sob
So many lines were goosebump inducing, oh my goodness! I can see them becoming standouts on social media, but there are so many good ones that I couldn't say which ones those would be. I'm honestly surprised I hadn't heard of it before NetGalley.
The climax was excellent and I thought the balance between action and character thoughts was great too.
The ending made me bawl

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
This book was perfect.

This was not as good as I'd hoped. The writing was good, and moody, but I didn't connect with any of the characters and it was just kind of depressing. I was interested in Blanca's story so that kept me reading, as her chapters from when she was alive were few and far between. Otherwise I may have quit reading. It's a quiet and subtle book and I may need to read it in the winter instead of the summer.

This novel knocked me flat, in the absolute best kind of way. It is fiercely original, intelligent, and laced with subtle wit. I'm honestly finding it such a struggle to put a review of this book into words that will properly convey how special and spectacular it really is.

First of all, this is a debut novel by a writer who has published only non-fiction to this point. And she knocked it out of the park, in my opinion. The prose is exquisite without being overly flowery. The characters have depth even though the book is a mere 300 pages. The chapters are short, and despite being a mix of flashbacks and present-day, it is obvious who is speaking and when the events are taking place. I was enthralled within the first few chapters, and my affection for this book only grew as I read it. It was an easy five stars for me.

Having said that, I do think that this book is targeted at specific subsets of an audience. It is not for the close-minded, the homophobic, the readers who require a book to follow a set structure or plot device. It might resonate best with a slightly more experienced crowd, maybe a woman in her 30s who has not only loved and lost, but also loved and won and then felt moments of regret over that winning as the months and years go on. There is no overt romance in this story, so readers who need that in a book will be disappointed. There is, however, a lot of love.

Blanca as a character is wholly unique, and her first-person narrative really perfects this book. She has the mood swings and tantrums of a 14-year-old, coupled with the contrasting wisdom and experience of having endured for nearly 400 years. I simply adore her as the narrator of this story. It's such a clever device too, as she has the ability to see everything going on inside each character's head, as well as their pasts and futures. She is timeless and wise in that way we all secretly strive to be.

Our other lead character, George, is an actual historical figure of note. Born Aurore Dupin, George Sand rose to prominence as a prolific writer in the Romantic era. In this book, we see only a glimpse into her life (aside from flashbacks/flashforwards), specifically the years 1838-1839, which she spent in Mallorca with her two children and lover, Frédéric Chopin. Yes, THAT Chopin. One of the best things about this story is that Chopin, a name recognizable to nearly everyone in the 21st century, is a sideline character. Nell Stevens has let the women in this novel shine, as they have every right to.

The next time I read this (because there will be multiple reads), I will make sure to prep a playlist of the specific Chopin works mentioned in a handful of chapter titles. I also have already bought a subset of George Sand novels, which I plan to read to better get a sense of her as a writer. This book was a stunning, unexpected triumph for me, and the last few lines hit me hard, giving me the chills. I do so hope you give this one a chance!

Huge thank you to Nell Stevens, Scribner, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

"Briefly, A Delicious Life" is a slow-burn of a novel that beautifully captures the musicality and beauty of Valdemossan and ghostly life. However, I struggled to connect fully with the story and remain engaged throughout the entirety of the novel. The language in this novel is stunning. Stevens beautifully captures many macabre and passionate moments with elegance. I was entranced by the way that the words and pacing almost reflected Chopin's preludes. However, I felt detached from the characters in this story, primarily because the reader, like Blanca, is much more an observer in this world than an active participant. There were moments where I absolutely lost myself in beauty and challenge of the language where I lost track of what was actually happening in the plot. Overall, this novel provides an exciting mash-up of ghost stories, queer romance, and Spanish life.