I have read several books by the author, Aimee Runyan, and was looking forward to getting lost in the pages of this contemporary fiction story. I was pleased to be able to enjoy this delightful book. A story of loss, legacy, self-discovery, you will journey with Tempèsta Luddington as she discovers aspects of her mother she never knew. As she grows in confidence and discovers her true calling in life, you will be transported to a small village in France. There is a touch of romance, but it is not over the top syrupy and just adds to the depth of story and have you absorbing every word on every page. “Even something as simple as a spring of lavender and sage” can reveal the magic and beauty in the everyday. When you have read the final word and closed the book, you will sigh with satisfaction and know that your time has been blessed through the author’s gift of words.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Muse for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

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This was the most delightful weekend read! I'm planting herbs now! The narration was wonderful and so much better than me mangling the French pronunciations on my own! I want to visit Saint-Colombe. Heck, I'd rent a room from Tempesta if she'd let me...scorpions and all. It was magical, uplifting, and I really want the green dutch oven! I can't recommend this enough!

The Memory of Lavender and Sage by Aimee Runyan is my first book by her and I adored it. It is the story of a young woman who sets out on a journey to learn about her mother’s past. In the end, she finds her future. Very well written. Wry thoroughly researched. The narrator was excellent. Highly recommend!

Tempèsta is a food critic and has always felt like the odd person out in her family. She lost her mother when she was 13 and after her father recently passed, she learns he left his entire estate to her younger brother, except a small inheritance left for her by her mother. She decides to move to a small village in Provence, where her mother grew up. She slowly learns her mother’s legacy and gets to know her mother in a different way through the village community.

This is Aimie’s first contemporary fiction and it was so beautifully written! This is Tempèsta’s story towards healing and finding herself. This is a very atmospheric story and will fully transport you to southern France!! While the community didn’t fully embrace her from the beginning, each member is so likable and adds much to Tempèsta’s found family. There is a bit of magical realism in the story and I loved this element and how it was weaved into the characters! This felt very reminiscent of Rachel Linden’s stories as well!

Highly recommend it if you enjoy:
💜Heartwarming stories
💜Found family
💜Atmospheric setting - the story takes place in southern France
💜Foodie stories
💜Magical realism
💜A little bit of romance

First off, A Memory of Lavender and Sage has one of the most beautiful covers of any book I've read this year. If I hadn't known what the book was about, and didn't know that the author is amazing, I'd have bought it just for the cover alone!

This book is a reminder that there doesn't need to be a shocking twist or a major death for it to be an excellent read. Everything about it felt cozy and while I listened to the words, narrated wonderfully by Caroline Hewitt, I was happily transported to and ensconced in a small French village. I wanted to be part of the community and become friends with the villagers, see the sights, smell the smells, taste all the things. Aimie K. Runyan mainly (only?) writes historical fiction and , while I have loved every book I've read so far, I think this move into the contemporary is a complete hit. I WANT MORE! This is exactly the kind of book I'm going to reach for on the beach, on a rainy day, on holiday -- just anytime, anywhere.

This book captured my heart completely. The beautiful writing, the gorgeous setting, fantastic characters and a story about self discovery that you won’t be able to put down. I loved every page.

"Always so concerned about making a living that you never take a time to worry about making a life."

The memory of lavender and sage is a story of a food critic / journalist Tempèsta Luddington who lost her mother when she was just 13. She is never welcomed by her paternal grandmother who brainwashes her father and brother both to stay aloof to her.

When her father passes away too after 15 years, she knows that there's hardly anything left for her to stay in the big city of New York anymore so impulsively she buys a ramshackle manor house in Sainte-Colombe, a small village in Provence, where her mother had grown up.

Hesitant at first she starts to warm to village and stubborn people of the village. This felt such a cliched story written just to make a movie based on and yet a part of me really loved it. What makes it standout though is the main character Tempesta, she is so well balanced character and even when she has faced so many difficulties in life, she did stand straight and strong and it made this book a very important one in my opinion.

Unfairness of the situation didn't make her break down but fight harder.

"I became the woman I'm and will become despite this family."

I don't like when heroines whine throughout the book about how unfair things had been in their lives if they had been treated as badly as Tempesta is treated by her family. She never annoyed me, she knew what to say, when to say and how to say (not a single annoying thing she said whole book) and I could not help but love her. She is the most likeable female protagonist I have come across in very very long time.

But that's not all it is about, it is about making a difference without harming the goodness of old things. It is also about not losing ourselves in the chaos of modernity and technology.

The audiobook narration is totally amazing which kept me hooked to the book.

Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins focus| Harper Muse for the wonderful audiobook ARC in exchange of an honest review.

Aimie's books are filled with strong charming characters that find their way into your heart and just won't let go. Her stories are always fascinating and the settings so well described you can picture it like a movie playing out in your mind. This novel had me enjoying my time in a small village in Southern France learning about delicious foods, herbs and how to use them, making new friends and finding a place to call home. With a little bit of romance and a smidgen of magic, this heartwarming book will leave you with all the feels.

I listened to this one, and the audio is great - I highly recommend! Tempesta Luddington has always felt out of place with her family - ever since her French mother passed away. She was never good enough for the luddington name, and her grandmother let her know it all the time. When her father passes away, Tempesta is left with a trust from her mother, and she says goodbye to the rat race of NYC, her brother, and heads to the small town of Sainte Columbe outside of Provence in France. There, she finds a new family in Esteva - the daughter of the mayor of the town who resists change at eery turn, handyman Tiberi who will help her renovate the small house and farm she bought, and Jenofa, the grandmother she always deserved but never had. We follow along as she discovers her purpose in life, and how she can help this dying town thrive again. I really enjoyed this book -the author is so good at taking you the place and time in her books. Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this one; all opinions are my own.

The story is written with such detail that, as a reader, I could feel and have strong visuals of the village. The author, Aimie K. Runyan, has a captivating voice that felt calming and brought an added sweet peace listening to the story. The details and warmth that drew me into be story added a desire to be immersed into the lifestyle of Sainte-Colombe. Tempèsta did not fit into her family’s (dad) expectations of a fast paced wealthy NYC lifestyle. When she took the opportunity to submerge herself into her mother’s home in Sainte-Colombe, she unraveled the mystery of her mother’s early life before NYC. This brought comfort and more connection to Tempèsta with the village and the community within to save it. While helping save the village, she also saved the relationship with her brother whom was committed to the family cycle of heavy work stress in NYC.
A beautiful story with immersive details, allowing the reader/listener to truly feel the emotions of the story.

What a beautfiul and magical read! Listening to this book made me feel as though I was right there with our main characters, gardening in the east of France. This story was nearly perfect to me; it had excellent pacing, well-written characters, a wonderful narrator with a gorgeous French accent (Caroline Hewitt) a fully developed setting/history that makes sense, and I think genuinely everyone should read this story. My only tiny critique is that some plot points felt predictable, but honestly that didn't detract from my enjoyment because I was so immersed in the French-ness of it all. 4/5 stars, it's a perfect read for springtime!!!
(Thank you to Net Galley, Aimie K. Runyan, and Harper Muse Audiobooks for sending me the audiobook to review. All thoughts are my own.)

I love the author’s historical fiction. Her jump into women’s fiction is absolutely amazing. It’s romance and magical realism and found family amid the beauty of Provence.

The descriptions are vivid. I wanted to jump right in a become a part of this village as well as head to Tempèsta’s house to enjoy the herbs in her greenhouse and have her cat rub against my leg..

If the title isn't evocative and beautiful enough, the story within The Memory of Lavender and Sage will grip you. It has so many layers. Tèmpesta is a character who feels like she doesn't fit into her family. Her mother was born in Sainte-Colombe, a tiny village in Provence in France.

I've never been to Provence, but I do have some lavender beauty products bought back for me as a gift and I love lavender fields which is something the area is famous for.

Tèmpesta and her brother, Wal, grew up in Grenwich, Connecticut, but Tèmpesta's dreams of one day being in her mother's village have followed her throughout life.

I loved the details of Tèmpesta's upbringing and the little details her mother bought to their family home: the food she cooked, the rustic furniture and the colorful quilt. I felt Tèmpesta's love for her mother so strongly and my heart ached for her since her loss.

She had to try to conform to what her father wanted in terms of more modern, darker, monochrome home decor, and took 3 degree subjects. I was happy to find that two were of her own choosing.

What I loved about Témpesta was that she never let anyone define her, and was so loyal to her mother's memory and wanted to keep it alive.

I didn't like her grandmother Lucille, or Wal or her father, and was glad that Tempeste always fought to forge her own path in. life.

She was someone to root for, and I was thoroughly invested in this audiobook, which was so wonderfully narrated by Caroline Hewitt, who perfectly captures the book's atmosphere, plotlines and characters.

The writing is evocative and detailed. The pacing is perfect, like a sun-drenched summer day in lavender fields.

Aimee K. Runyan writes beautifully and this is my first novel by her. It won't be my last. I think I've found another favourite author.

The Memory of Lavender and Sage is a real, heartwrenching, realistic, and completely immersive winner of a novel that I won't forget in a long time. I listened to it in a day.

Thanks to Aimee K. Runyan, Harper Muse Audiobooks, and NetGalley for my audiobook in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.

5 stars but it deserves more.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Focus for gifting me this ALC of the audiobook to review.
I took a liking to the main character right at the start of the book, but my sympathies with her dwindled a bit with her move to France and how naively she handled it. Her family circumstances are not the best and some of her family members are quite toxic and I like how she stood up for herself without being destructive. So I thought, here we have a strong likeable character. But then she decided to move to France and I don’t have anything against her decision, but how she went about it just felt very naïve. Why would you buy a house sight unseen? Without ever having been to the town? She was lucky that the people were nice to her in the end and her health and safety weren’t threatened at any point, but girl did no research, took no precautions, nothing. I also don’t believe that her high school French is enough for the conversations that were described in the book.

The book has a decidedly American point of view, where European/ French culture gets fetishized and to a lesser extent also stereotyped. For example, the supermarket with fresh produce is presented as something whimsical. Yes, the amount of processed foods in the States is way higher, but fresh produce does still exist. The MC even says that the coffee in this small French town is way better than anything you could get in New York. I’m sorry but when it comes to coffee, the freshness of the roast is what counts, no matter how you like your coffee to look in the end and I am 1000% sure you can get a fresher roast in NYC than some small town in France that does not have its own roastery. The book also makes it seem like moving to Europe is the only way to have a work-life balance, which is just not true. As a European, I agree that living in Europe/ France has its advantages to living in the States, but that does not mean that everything is automatically better there or fresher. So for the Europeans and especially the French reading this book, be warned that the descriptions might not be to your liking.

Similarly to the US-France comparison, there was a comparison between living in the city and small-town living. I think both have their perks, but the book clearly leaned toward small-town living. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the descriptions had the same energy as the US-France comparisons, where everything was automatically deemed better in the small town. As a result, the main character came across like a small-town pick-me girl.
The romance came a bit out of nowhere for me and it felt like it had no substance to it. The MMC seems like a nice guy, but we don't know anything about him or why he likes the FMC.

The blurb hints at the magical aspect of this book, but I don’t think that is enough and should be mentioned more clearly because I would imagine not everyone enjoys reading about kitchen witches or wants to get blindsided by it. I didn’t mind this component of the story, but would have been disappointed if I read the blurb and imagined something different. It does seem a bit strange that FMC comes to her powers to suddenly without at least having a green thumb or something similar before.

Something I appreciated about the book, was the many side characters. They felt very true to life and also gave the village a more rounded feeling.

Overall, this is a cosy read if you are not put off by the points mentioned before and are looking for a ‘finding yourself’ story rather than a romance.

Concerning the audiobook, Caroline Hewitt did an amazing job with her narration. She has a wide range of voices to distinguish the different characters and I think she is one of the few narrators that also does excellent voices for men.

Book: The Memory of Lavender and Sage
Author: Aimie K. Runyan
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Romance, Self-Discovery/Change, Wine & Food
Places Featured: Provence, France
Review Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Review: Tempesta feels lost. She's a food critic in a dying industry, her father has just passed away and she has no parents left, she feels estranged from her brother, and she still just doesnt fit in with her family. So even though most of the family's money is going to her brother, she decides to take what she does get and go to Colombe, France, the small town in Provence where her mother was from. She's immediately recognized...and not exactly welcomed with open arms by everyone there, but she wants to stick it out. And through her love of food, her friends, and her special abilities, she learns a lot. It's a well-written book with a really good balance between food, France, romance, friends, and family to make it a lovely book.

Tempesta's mom died when she was about 13, her grandma (dad's mom) moved in with them and clearly doesn't like her, she also has a younger brother Wal. Dad only cared about the family name and wealth. He dies a few years later and leaves everything in his will to her brother, but mom’s stuff is all given to her. She goes to her mom’s hometown in France to learn more about her, buys a house that was abandoned for over 20 years and is nearly unlivable but hires a man to fix it up. Villagers thought they were free from her family and some are unhappy she’s there.

I don’t feel the romance between Tempesta and Tiberi, they feel more like casual friends, and I thought her grandma was a little too villainous. But I liked the story and the magical realism. Tempesta has a way with herbs - gift for cooking, they grow extremely fast, she kind of communicates with them, and can infuse emotions into the food. Her mom had the same skill for embroidering - would give the emotion she felt while making it to the person using it. Grandma had the gift for animals - soothed a horse expert given up on.

This is a sweet story about family history, finding your place in a community, true friendship, family relationships, and love.

What a wonderful book! I totally sank into this read and didn't want to stop. This book, with a lovely cup of London Fog Latte (Lady Grey tea with Lavender) and some biscuits were the perfect way to relax. It's a beautifully written story with fabulously detailed characters and plot that I feel like I'm in Provence. I didn't want it to end. The narrator has the perfect voice for each of the characters and for the French speaking. Magnifique!

In "The Memory of Lavender and Sage," we meet Tempèsta Luddington, a woman with a troubled home life and a recently deceased father. His passing reveals secrets she never knew about her mother, who died when Tempèsta was eleven.

Eventually, she leaves her home to travel to the village her mother came from in France, and she learns more about her mother than she ever knew before. At the same time, she begins to learn more about herself, including special gifts and talents she never knew were possible.

I really enjoyed Tempèsta's experience of "found family" and how much they helped her understand about her mother, herself and their past. There's a hint of the mystical to this story, but it's not overpowering. There aren't really any huge events to the story, just a gentle unfolding. But it kept my attention the entire time. I enjoyed the simplicity of the story and the peace I felt watching Tempèsta grow into her own and make a new home for herself.

Thank you to Aimie K. Runyan, HarperCollins, and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

This audio was a very calming book to listen too. I enjoyed the story very much and found myself always wanting to hear more.

This is a simple, sweet little book about a village in France and the people who live there. It's filled with the colors of Provence, the smells and the sights of the village. The story is of a New York City woman who decides to return to the village where her mother grew up, and what happens to her when she arrives. She discovers she has a special talent for growing herbs and using them in ways that will change the people who use them. The magical realism is delightful, and the book will soothe your jangled nerves. The narrator uses a French accent when the local people are speaking, so it's interesting to discover how some of the words are pronounced.