“The World of Constance Prévost” is a contemporary romance by Amélie Vallée, a Canadian author. Her book, published in her home country in 2018, has crossed borders and is now available in Europe for French-speaking readers. Dive into this world that is a subtle blend of love and friendship!
Amélie Vallée is trained as a lawyer. And although she was also a columnist for the newspaper L’Hebdo du St-Maurice, “The World of Constance Prévost” is her first book. It tells us the story of Constance, a young woman full of energy, and also full of ideas, but who has a big problem: in her romantic relationships, she seems to systematically choose men who are not independent, as if she needs to mother them. The relationship that develops is doomed to fail before it even truly begins. That is why all her love stories are real disasters. At least that’s the assessment of her two friends with whom she has been inseparable since university: Tess, the girl who lives life to the fullest and has a weakness for men of different nationalities, and with whom Constance has created her event planning company; and Étienne, a photographer for a telecommunications company whom Tess and Constance regularly call upon.
To remedy these poor relationship choices, Tess and Étienne propose a challenge to Constance: they write her a personal ad on a dating site by choosing very specific criteria to look for, in order for her to meet independent and interesting men, far from her comfort zone. The challenge is governed by two rules: the first is that Constance must go out with the man in question at least three times before disqualifying him; the second is that she must not choose alone the candidate she will meet. And of course, nothing is going to go as planned!
“The World of Constance Prévost” could be described in one word: refreshing! Indeed, although the topic of searching for a soulmate has been dealt with thousands of times in novels, this debut novel by Amélie Vallée stands out because it rings true. Far from the clichés and feminist statements often found in this genre of novel, the author has chosen a heroine who resembles contemporary women, with their apprehensions, fits of anger, joys, and prides. And that’s what appeals! And besides feeling authentic in its characters, the book describes everyday life situations of Constance in a very natural way, and this is also true for her close circle, whose love passions we also follow. Constance seeks love on a dating site, chats on social networks, must sometimes bend over backward to make her event planning business thrive and try to network with the high society to get new contracts, she struggles to detach from a past love … And her character evolves, through experiences, revealing a completely transformed Constance by the end of the book!
The title, published by Les Éditeurs réunis, already has a sequel that we’re eager to discover as we have grown so attached to the characters. Amélie Vallée is originally from Mauricie, in Quebec. In 2004, she became a lawyer with the Quebec Bar. Since 2009, she has been working in the philanthropy sector.
“This guy is quite a phenomenon. He flips from the romantic poet to the coarse macho in a quarter of a second. I almost find it hard to understand what drives me to want to extend our meetings. At heart, it might be an indescribable relationship, but my intuition tells me to trust him.”
The book’s website: https://univers-constanceprevost.com/
