Nicolas Barreau

Nicolas Barreau works in a bookshop on the Rive Gauche in Paris, but is anything but a reclusive bookworm. The Woman in my Life (Die Frau meines Lebens) is his first novel.

You'll Find Me at the End of the World

Jean-Luc is determined to track down the capricious author of the most seductive love letters in the world. He doesn’t know anything about her, except that she has captured his heart. Jean-Luc Champollion is what the French call a homme à femmes. The charming gallery owner has always been a hit with the ladies and he wants nothing more than to live out his days in the company of many women and his faithful dalmatian, Cézanne. Then a letter arrives in the post, and his life changes course. The letter is a love letter, a delightful love letter, but it doesn’t say who it is from. Jean-Luc is baffled, but he decides to play along. The writer has given him an email address, so he sends a message, hoping to unmask the mysterious stranger who seems to know him so well. Scrutinizing his past like a detective, he follows up the clues in the stranger’s letters without realizing that he is beginning to fall in love. The object of his passion exists only in words and in his imagination, but he comes to know her better than the pictures in his gallery, even though he has never seen her face. Or has he?

• HC: Thiele Verlag 2008


• PB: Piper 2010


• Sold to: The Netherlands (Uitgeverij Arena, a division of de Boekerij b.v), Czech Republic (Albatros), Lithuania (Gimtasis Zodis)


• Movie & TV: Rights free (AVA international)

The Women in my Life

A man. A woman. Love at first sight. Losing and finding one other again in the space of 24 hours.

 “Today I met the woman in my life. She was sitting in my favourite café, right at the back at a wooden table in front of the mirror wall and she smiled at me. Sadly, she was not alone. I have to admit that the chap was sitting beside her, holding her hand, was  damnably good-looking. So I just looked at her, stirred my café crème and implored the heavens to make something happen. And then something did actually happen. The woman in my life got up and went to the toilet. When she came back, she winked at me briefly and in an unexpected gesture dropped a little card onto my table. There was a name and a telephone number on it. Nothing else. My heart skipped a beat with joy. And so began the most exciting 24 hours in my life…” But what began with a smile soon turned into a turbulent story full of delusion and confusion, delightful complications and unforeseen misunderstandings.

A feather-light story, told with wit and humour about a man who sets out to find the love of his life. And he discovers that even on the roller-coaster of life there is an overtaking lane.

• HC: Thiele Verlag 2007


• PB: Piper Verlag 2008


• Sold to: The Netherlands (Uitgeverij Arena, a division of de Boekerij b.v.), Taiwan (Rye Field Publications, a division of Cite Publishin Ltd.), Lithuania (Gimtasis Zodis)


• Movie & TV: Rights free (AVA international)