MARGUERITE is a slow burn of a novel, written with enough skill to keep readers turning the pages for the first, scene-setting chapters --- and then catching fire until the dazzling denouement.

Marguerite Demers is a young, attractive Parisian nurse who moves to Saint Sulpice, a rural French village, to care for a cantankerous old man. It’s clear that she’s running away from her past, and even when she’s settled into her new lodgings, she doesn’t engage much with the locals. Nevertheless, she befriends her patient, Jérôme Lanvier, and eventually gets to know his resentful sons and the few neighbors who come to visit.

"Kemp illustrates the daily rhythms of life in this bucolic village and juxtaposes its beauty with the anguish of its inhabitants."

As her past --- and her neighbors’ real or imagined transgressions  --- begin to reveal themselves, the characters’ complexities draw readers in. There’s Suki Lacourse, a lively Muslim woman married to an older, wealthy man who bores her; Henri Brochon, a handsome farmer who is married to an unattractive woman with whom he has no intimacy; and Brigitte, his bitter wife, who is suspicious of both Marguerite and Suki. Then there are the three Lanvier sons, who rarely come to visit their father, but have suddenly appeared, and Edgar, a writer who shares a friendship with Suki and a secret with Henri.

Debut novelist Marina Kemp captures the suffocating intimacy of local life that ensures no one’s innermost secrets will remain that way for long. What makes MARGUERITE stand out, though, is that Kemp illustrates the daily rhythms of life in this bucolic village and juxtaposes its beauty with the anguish of its inhabitants. This is quite an accomplishment and well worth the slow start.