The Dressmaker

Monsieur Claude Reynaud is known throughout France for his talent for making fabulous clothes. The most elegant women in Paris regularly make the pilgrimage to the cobbled village of Senlis to be charmed by the tailor in the cluttered studio by the century-old apple tree. Claude can take a measurement at a glance, stores everything in his head, and fashions each dress by hand. And, despite his ex-wife's protests, he refuses to be lured by the promise of the Parisian fashion industry. He is too old change and certainly too old to fall in love: his only passion is his studio. Then one afternoon, in a cloud of spring blossom, Mademoiselle Valentine de Verlay arrives on Claude's doorstep. She commissions him to create her wedding dress. But before the first stitch has even been made, Claude realises that for the first time in his life he has fallen passionately in love and, very quickly, the seams of both their lives begin to unravel Utterly irresistible ...The Dressmaker is a delight - Margot Livesey. Elizabeth Oberbeck's novel shimmers with invention. Her imagination is amazingly tactile, visual and sensuous, a rare pleasure ...The Dressmaker is a wonderful debut - Beth Gutcheon.  One creates a relationship as carefully as one creates a wedding dress. The Dressmaker doesn't drop a stitch - Rita Mae Brown.