Five Quarters of the Orange

Mesmerizing, suspenseful, and moving. The action takes place in France. A tough, unhappy woman worked hard to raise 3 children by herself in rural poverty shortly before and during WWII. Her daughter starts telling you about her own life at the age of about sixty, and then goes back to the story of her childhood. Her narrative moves back and forth between the past and present. She had returned to the small village some years earlier, living in her childhood home, but under another name. She doesn't want the villagers to know who she is, and you gradually find out why.

This is a thoroughly unsentimental book, and a very sensuous one. The descriptions of food are amazing!