Double Room by Anne Sénès

 

Double Room by Anne Sénès.

Translated from the French by Alice Banks.

Published 19th June 2025 by Orenda Books.

From the cover of the book:

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…

***********

London, late 1990s. Promising French composer, Stan, arrives in London to write the music for a ground-breaking stage adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The troubled production fails to open, but during his time in London he meets the love of his life, make-up artist, Liv. The two become a contented couple, and when their daughter, Lisa, arrives it seems that they could not be happier. Stan finds himself entering the most creative period of his life as a composer, surrounded by intense sensations inspired by domestic bliss.

France, present day. After the tragic death of Liv, Stan has returned home to reside in the house left to him by his aunt - the Rabbit Hole. The family now includes lifeguard Babette and her son, a boy of Lisa’s age, and Laïvely, an AI machine Stan invented to get himself through the dark nights after Liv's death - traces of Liv live on through the device he has endowed with her voice.

Stan tries his best to face the future, but he is haunted by his past. Memories blur with reality, and Laïvely seems to be acting strangely, taking on a consciousness that she was never designed to have...

Double Room is one of those novels that defies easy explanation, as it is so much more than the sum of its parts. Sénès somehow combines a domestic drama, eerie speculative yarn, a twisty mystery, and a literary exploration of difficult emotions, all within a debut novel that spans no more than 300 pages - it is quite a feat of masterful writing, especially for a debut.

The novel unfurls in two compelling timelines, following the years of Stan's domestic bliss in London, and the present day in France, following Liv's death. There could not be a greater contrast between the man and his music in former, happy times, and in the latter iteration of his existence, where he is now a shadow of his former self and unable to write a single note, despite the love of Babette - woman very different from the complicated Liv.

As the chapters flow, flipping back and forth between present and past, Sénès unveils an unexpected mystery around Stan's marriage to Liv and the tragedy that tore her from him, hinting at why he is so fixated on the virtual presence of Laïvely. Ever so gradually the ideas you have formed about what is going on here shift and remake themselves into a rather different picture, culminating in a devastating revelation that stops you dead in your tracks. It is a truth so completely jaw-dropping, that when I finished the story I immediately went back to the beginning and read it all over again, to spot the subtle clues Sénès hides so cleverly within the text! A note here about the excellent translation by Alice Banks, which keeps you immersed so utterly in all the lovely misdirection and emotional melodrama conjured by Sénès in her original novel. I was floored!

There is no doubt that this is an unsettling book, which leaves images and ideas lingering long after you have turned the final page, but it is so rewarding. Sénès positively crams theme upon delicious theme into this story. The way she examines love, loss and obsession is superb, with all their messy associations with desire, expectation, and human frailty. She also explores synesthesia so vividly through Stan's experience of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, particularly when it comes to memory and music. What a cracker!

Double Room is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats. You can buy direct from Orenda Books HERE.

Thank you to Orenda Books for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and to Random Things Tours for inviting me to join this blog tour.

About the author:

Anne Sénès 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 (Double Room) is her first literary novel.