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 in part by Patrick Süskind’s Perfume, Vanessa McCausland’s The Heart Note follows three women across time who use scent to unlock their power and discover who they really are.

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

Top 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 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 when the pair travelled together in Grasse, and Eva takes it as a sign: she must go to France.

Base note—1532: Heli is the daughter of the most renowned glove maker in Grasse. She has an affinity for flowers, but washing leather in the canals for her father leaves her ashamed of her stained hands, and the stink of her skin and hair. She longs for her mother, who makes intoxicating vapors and tinctures, to share her craft. But when her mother falls ill, Heli decides to create concoctions of her own, stumbling upon an invention that will change the town, the history of perfume, and have echoes far into the future.

Heart note—2001: Eva is in her early twenties, traveling in the south of France with her mother. The two couldn’t be more different. Eva is fiercely independent and imagines a big, creative life for herself. Lily is stuck in the role of “mother” and “wife.” When Eva takes off after a tense argument, leaving Lily alone in Grasse, Lily finds herself creating perfume and at a chateau with a cast of characters, among them a handsome widower.

Three women at crossroads collide in this beautiful, delicate historical novel. Based on the author’s research and reimagining of the history of French perfume, it’s a captivating look at the role scent plays in memory and life and the complexity of mother daughter relationships.