In His Arms — Camille Laurens

An international bestseller translated into twelve languages and the winner of France's prestigious Prix Femina

Our narrator, Camille, loves men. One might say she's obsessed with them. The latest object of her affection is a psychiatrist, and what better way to seduce a psychiatrist than by laying bare the intricacies of her own mind? Camille becomes his patient and slowly unveils her romantic, sexual, and psychological secrets by telling the story of her life through the men she has known: father, teacher, lover, letch; husband, brother, boss, and friend.

In His Arms was a phenomenon in France, where it became an obsessive topic of conversation among women of all ages. In the tradition of Marguerite Duras's The Lover and Susan Minot's Rapture, it is a stylish, sensual novel about love in all its guises -- first love and married love; secret love; adulterous love; frenzied, embarrassed, speechless love -- and the story of Camille's last conquest, one made not by hiding or distorting who she is but by revealing everything.