The Perfume Thief: A Novel

A LOS ANGELES TIMES TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE SUMMER A Gentleman in Moscow meets "Moulin Rouge" in this stylish, sexy page-turner set in Paris on the eve of World War II, where Clementine, a queer American ex-pat and notorious thief, is drawn out of retirement and into one last scam when the Nazis invade. " A superb novel . . . This is historical fiction at its finest, vivid and beautifully rendered."--EMILY ST JOHN MANDEL author of The Glass Hotel Clementine is a seventy-two year-old reformed con artist with a penchant for impeccably tailored suits. Her life of crime has led her from the uber-wealthy perfume junkies of belle epoque Manhattan, to the scented butterflies of Costa Rica, to the spice markets of Marrakech, and finally the bordellos of Paris, where she settles down in 1930 and opens a shop bottling her favorite extracts for the ladies of the cabarets. Now it's 1941 and Clem's favorite haunt, Madame Boulette's, is crawling with Nazis, while Clem's people--the outsiders, the artists, and the hustlers who used to call it home--are disappearing. Clem's first instinct is to go to ground--it's a frigid Paris winter and she's too old to put up a fight. But when the cabaret's prize songbird, Zoe St. Angel, recruits Clem to steal the recipe book of a now-missing famous Parisian perfumer, she can't say no. Her mark is Oskar Voss, a Francophile Nazi bureaucrat, who wants the book and Clem's expertise to himself. Hoping to buy the time and trust she needs to pull off her scheme, Clem settles on a novel strategy- Telling Voss the truth about the life and loves she came to Paris to escape. Complete with romance, espionage, champagne towers, and haute couture, this full-tilt sensory experience is a dazzling portrait of the underground resistance of twentieth-century Paris and a passionate love letter to the power of beauty and community in the face of insidious hate.

Literature & Fiction

Schaffert, Timothy

Genre Fiction

DOUBLEDAY

Clementine is a seventy-two year-old reformed con artist with a penchant for impeccably tailored suits. Her life of crime has led her from the uber-wealthy perfume junkies of belle epoque Manhattan, to the scented butterflies of Costa Rica, to the spice markets of Marrakech, and finally the bordellos of Paris, where she settles down in 1930 and opens a shop bottling her favourite extracts for the ladies of the cabarets. Now it’s 1941 and Clem’s favourite haunt, Madame Boulette’s, is crawling with Nazis, while Clem’s people―the outsiders, the artists, and the hustlers who used to call it home―are disappearing. Clem’s first instinct is to go to ground―it’s a frigid Paris winter and she’s too old to put up a fight. But when the cabaret’s prize songbird, Zoe St. Angel, recruits Clem to steal the recipe book of a now-missing famous Parisian perfumer, she can’t say no. Her mark is Oskar Voss, a Francophile Nazi bureaucrat, who wants the book and Clem’s expertise to himself. Hoping to buy the time and trust she needs to pull off her scheme, Clem decides to tell Voss the real story of the life and loves she came to Paris to escape. But Clem doesn’t have much practice telling the truth and it turns out to be more dangerous than she could have imagined. Complete with romance, espionage, champagne towers, and haute couture, this full-tilt sensory experience is a dazzling portrait of the underground resistance of twentieth-century Paris and a passionate love letter to the power of beauty and community in the face of insidious hate.

The Perfume Thief

Contemporary

RANDOM HOUSE US

The Titanic Survivors Book Club: A Novel

Literary

In Timothy Schaffert's seriocomic debut, two sisters on the cusp of womanhood struggle to understand their father's suicide as well as their mother's abandonment of them many years earlier. Lily and Mabel live on their own in their grandmother's antique shop in rural Nebraska. They are bonded by their loyalty to each other and their haunting urgency to reconcile their own versions of the past so that they might build their futures together. In a rebellious act, Lily steals a car with her boyfriend and heads southwest to an Arizona vineyard to confront her mother. Mabel stays behind, seeking to commune somehow with her father's ghost. In a story that rises out of the spare Nebraska landscape, Schaffert delivers a textured, eccentric, and redemptive tale about two young women searching for wholeness and love.

The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters

United States

Blue Hen

Abandoned by their mother after their father's suicide, Lily and Mabel live on their own in their grandmother's old junk shop in rural Nebraska. They are bonded by their loyalty to each other-and by their urgent desire to reconcile their own versions of the past. In what she means to be a rebellious act, Lily steals a car with her boyfriend and heads southwest to confront her mother. Mabel stays behind, hoping to commune somehow with her father's ghost...in a textured, eccentric, and redemptive tale as spare and compelling as the Nebraska landscape.

Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters

Blue Hen Trade

Vintage

A lush and thrilling romantic fable about two lovers set against the scandalous burlesques, midnight séances, and aerial ballets of the 1898 Omaha World’s Fair. On the eve of the 1898 Omaha World’s Fair, Ferret Skerritt, ventriloquist by trade, con man by birth, isn’t quite sure how it will change him or his city. Omaha still has the marks of a filthy Wild West town, even as it attempts to achieve the grandeur and respectability of nearby Chicago. But when he crosses paths with the beautiful and enigmatic Cecily, his whole purpose shifts and the fair becomes the backdrop to their love affair. One of a traveling troupe of actors that has descended on the city, Cecily works in the Midway’s Chamber of Horrors, where she loses her head hourly on a guillotine playing Marie Antoinette. And after closing, she rushes off, clinging protectively to a mysterious carpetbag, never giving Ferret a second glance. But a moonlit ride on the swan gondola, a boat on the lagoon of the New White City, changes everything, and the fair’s magic begins to take its effect. From the critically acclaimed author of The Coffins of Little Hope, The Swan Gondola is a transporting read, reminiscent of Water for Elephants or The Night Circus.

The Swan Gondola: A Novel

Riverhead Books

For readers of Water for Elephants or The Night Circus, a lush and thrilling romantic fable about two lovers set against the scandalous burlesques, midnight séances, and aerial ballets of the 1898 Omaha World’s Fair. On the eve of the World’s Fair, Ferret Skerritt, ventriloquist by trade, con man by birth, is unsure how the fair’s events will change him or his city. Omaha still has the marks of a filthy Wild West town, even as it attempts to achieve the grandeur and respectability of nearby Chicago. But when he crosses paths with the beautiful and enigmatic Cecily, his purpose shifts, and the fair becomes the backdrop to their love affair. One of a traveling troupe of actors that has descended on the city, Cecily works in the Midway’s Chamber of Horrors, where she loses her head hourly on a guillotine, playing Marie Antoinette. And after closing, she rushes off, clinging protectively to a mysterious carpetbag, never giving Ferret a second glance. But a moonlit ride on the swan gondola, a boat on the lagoon of the New White City, transforms everything when the fair’s magic begins to take its effect.

Timothy Schaffert has created his most memorable character yet in Essie, an octogenarian obituary writer for her family’s small town newspaper. When a young country girl is reported to be missing, perhaps whisked away by an itinerant aerial photographer, Essie stumbles onto the story of her life. Or, it all could be simply a hoax, or a delusion, the child and child-thief invented from the desperate imagination of a lonely, lovelorn woman. Either way, the story of the girl reaches far and wide, igniting controversy, attracting curiosity-seekers and cult worshippers from all over the country to this dying rural town. And then it is revealed that the long awaited final book of an infamous series of YA gothic novels is being secretly printed on the newspaper’s presses. The Coffins of Little Hope tells a feisty, energetic story of characters caught in the intricately woven webs of myth, legend and deception even as Schaffert explores with his typical exquisite care and sharp eye the fragility of childhood, the strength of family, the powerful rumor mills of rural America, and the sometimes dramatic effects of pop culture on the way we shape our world.

The Coffins of Little Hope

Teen & Young Adult

Unbridled Books

An 83-year-old obituary writer for a struggling, small-town newspaper finds herself embroiled in intrigue, stumbling onto the story of her career: a country girl has gone missing, perhaps whisked away by an itinerant aerial photographer. Or so it seems. It all could be simply a hoax, or a delusion, the child and child-thief invented from the desperate imagination of a lonely, lovelorn farm woman. The fragility of childhood, the strength of family, and the powerful rumor mills of small, rural townsThe Coffins of Little Hope tells the story of characters caught in the intricately woven webs of myth, legend and deception. Esther Myles, an obituary writer in her eighties working for a struggling small-town newspaper, finds herself embroiled in intrigue, stumbling upon the story of her career as the story of the girl reaches far and wide, igniting controversy, attracting curiosity-seekers from all over the country to this dying rural town. And what do the gothic tales of Miranda and Desiree, the storybook sisters of Muscatine’s series of novels, play in this town’s survival and in the enduring mystery of Lenore?

Humor & Satire

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Schaffert, Timothy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Schaffert, Timothy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Schaffert, Timothy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Perfume Thief: A Novel

The Perfume Thief

The Titanic Survivors Book Club: A Novel

The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters

Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters

The Titanic Survivors Book Club: A Novel

The Swan Gondola: A Novel

The Swan Gondola: A Novel

The Coffins of Little Hope

The Coffins of Little Hope