Amazon.com description: Product Description: In the orphanage, she whispers her tales at night. In her place as maid to Madame Patin in the cafe next to the sea, she becomes the breathless audience for her mistress's alarming folk stories, beginning with the one about the mermaid - the beauty who is also a monster - who must be killed.
Genevieve happily falls into the ways of Madame Patin and contentedly cooks, cleans, gardens and serves the customers alongside her. Until, that is, Genevieve's own comeliness and cunning ripen to siren beauty. To avoid the mermaid's fate she must take flight.
And she does - to another word-spinner - a poet who has the hearts of all his women. Kind the poet may be, but he too is a collector of stories, and when you speak your story, you give away more than words.