I’ve been thinking about stretching out underneath the fan on my back porch with a book all week. It’s really the only place to be when the ac is broken. A book that will take me away from this sweltering southern heat, even though I’m perspiring as much as the tea pitcher. I’m hoping The Secret’s We Keep by Lara Prescott is going to take me away.

Of course that got me thinking about what book I could recommend to anyone that’s needing to be completely transported. Browsing my shelves I landed on The Perfume Collector. It’s got secretes, and trials, and leaps of faith, and triumph.

At the center of The Perfume Collector is two women, living lives separated by circumstances, decades, and truth. We move with them from 1920’s New York, Monte Carlo, Paris and London, to London of the 1950’s. Threading through the narrative is the question of what role does scent play in our memory? Is our essence the scent that only we ourselves possess, and can that scent leads us back to truths we didn’t know we were missing?

The story will take you away, but when I closed the cover I started to think about the scents that brings me to the past. Scent so deeply roots in our memories.