The Heart Note

A mysterious confession leads one woman to Grasse, France, the perfume capital of the world, where she uncovers a deep-rooted secret that reverberates across centuries. Inspired by Patrick Suskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Vanessa McCausland's The Heart Note travels from 2022, to 2001, to 1532, following three women who use the power of scent to unlock deep-rooted truths.

A perfume is made of three layers: the top note, the base note and the heart note.

2022: Eva never thought her life would look like this: she has lost her sense of smell after being ill, is losing her marriage to repeated affairs, and her mother, Lily, is being moved into a care home as her dementia worsens. But one day, in the midst of a dissociated dementia state, her mother reveals that she wouldn't want Eva to "find out what I did" twenty years ago in Grasse, and Eva takes it as a sign: she must go to France.

1532: Heli is the daughter of the most renowned glove maker in Grasse. The downside of her work is the perpetual stink left on her clothes, her hands, in her hair. She longs for the day when her mother, who makes intoxicating tinctures, will teach her her craft. But when her mother falls ill, Heli decides to play around with creating concoctions of her own, stumbling upon an invention that will change the town, the history of perfume, and have echoes far into the future.

2001: Lily is stuck in the role of 'mother' and 'wife'. When her daughter Eva takes off after a tense argument, leaving Lily alone in Grasse, Lily finds herself making perfume and at a chateau with a cast of characters, among them a handsome widower.

The Heart Note is a wonderful blend of historical and contemporary timelines, inspired by the history of perfume and women who have travelled the streets of Grasse for centuries, for all fans of Pip Williams, Holly Ringland and Kate Morton.

'McCausland's elegant, petal-light prose evokes a compelling, sensuous tale of three women in three different times, from present day Australia to sixteenth-century France. A fragrant love letter - or should I say heart note? - to France, as well as to mothers and daughters, this book is rich with notes of history, creativity and femininity; its scent stayed with me long after I turned the final page.' Kell Woods, Sunday Times bestselling author of After the Forest

'Vanessa McCausland beautifully weaves together three women, three time periods, and three mysteries in an immersive novel that kept me turning pages until the very end. She takes readers on a fascinating and compelling trip to a gorgeous French countryside village with a dark secret at its heart.' Jill Santopolo, New York Times bestselling author of The Light We Lost