Double Room (Paperback)

When his life falls apart after a horrific tragedy, a composer returns to his native France, where he creates an AI machine with his dead wife’s voice, with unexpected, devastating consequences…

‘Mesmerising … Stan melds technology with the human spirit, defying the cruel randomness of his wife’s death while allowing part of her to continue to exist and interact with him … a brooding, curious novel’ Foreword Reviews

‘A book that will haunt you with what is said and what is left unsaid … simply brilliant’ Jill Johnson

‘Every page contains a mystery, a twist, a doubt. We don’t follow the characters, we travel alongside them, turning the pages in an ever-increasing frenzy’ Jean-Paul Delfino

‘Sénès’s impressive and suspenseful literary debut novel will tempt most to read it in just one sitting’ Library Journal STARRED review

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London, late 1990s. Stan, a young and promising French composer, is invited to arrange the music for a theatrical adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The play will never be staged, but Stan meets Liv, the love of his life, and their harmonious duo soon becomes a trio with the birth of their beloved daughter, Lisa. Stan’s world is filled with vibrant colour and melodic music, and under his wife and daughter’s gaze, his piano comes to life.

Paris, today. After Liv’s fatal accident, Stan returns to France surrounded by darkness, no longer able to compose, and living in the Rabbit Hole, a home left to him by an aunt. He shares his life with Babette, a lifeguard and mother of a boy of Lisa’s age, and Laïvely, an AI machine of his own invention endowed with Liv’s voice, that he spent entire nights building after her death.

But Stan remains haunted by his past. As the silence gradually gives way to noises, whistles and sighs – sometimes even bursts of laughter – and Laïvely seems to take on a life of its own, memories and reality fade and blur…

And Stan’s new family implodes…

For readers who love Laura Kasischke, David Nicholls and Kazuo Ishiguro

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‘This spellbinding novel takes readers on a multi-sensory journey through love and loss, grief, frustration and lust … One of my favourite reads of the year’ Gill Paul

‘Told in an achingly beautiful voice, Double Room drew me into a world full of mystery, music and bittersweet love. Every sentence is poetic, every page is captivating. I could picture, taste and smell every scene…’ Katie Allen

‘A beautiful, heartfelt and sensual story, written with style and grace’ Doug Johnstone

‘A masterful exploration of vulnerability, shifting memory and loss. Anne Sénès writes with sharp yet tender insight. Her words contain a subtle urgency that keep the pages turning’ Jill Johnson

‘Enchanting, beautiful, poetic … evokes the most indescribable feelings’ Babelio

‘Spellbinding, disconcerting and hypnotic … an amalgamation of Shakespearean tragedy, the spirit of Lewis Carroll and the vivid descriptions of Wuthering Heights’ Aurélie Dye-Pellisson

‘Profound and acutely moving … a rich, extraordinary sensory experience that brings to mind the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro’ Reader Review

What readers are saying:

‘A mesmerising, unsettling story – I finished it breathless!’

‘Beautiful and strange in equal measure, unlike anything I’ve read’

‘Heartbreaking, lyrical, haunting … I’ll be thinking about this for weeks’

‘Captures grief and longing with devastating precision’

‘Spine-tingling and deeply human – a masterpiece of mood and memory’

‘I read it in two nights, unable to look away’

Anne Sé nè s was born in Paris and studied at the Sorbonne, where she obtained a PhD in English studies. Her passion for Anglo-Saxon literature and culture has taken her all over the world, from London to Miami, passing through the south of France. She is currently based on the Mediterranean coast, where she works as a journalist and translator. Chambre Double (The Double Room) is her first literary novel.

Alice Banks was born in Shropshire and completed her MA in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia. She now lives in Madrid where she works as a translator from French and Spanish into English. Her first translation, Deranged As I Am, by Comoros writer, Ali Zamir, was published in 2022 and was followed by Madrid Will Be Their Tomb, by Spanish political spokesperson and author, Elizabeth Duval, published in 2023. Alice collaborates with Hablemos, escritoras to translate their podcasts and content into English.