My Sweet Guillotine, by Jayne Tuttle

26 September 2022

My Sweet Guillotine (published by Hardie Grant Books, September 2022), is the second book by Australian author Jayne Tuttle.

Like her debut title, Paris or Die, My Sweet Guillotine is a memoir about her time living and working in Paris. Here though, Tuttle focuses adjusting to life following a freak accident in the French capital that almost killed her.

In the wake of a bizarre, shocking accident in Paris, Jayne finds herself back in the city in a strange limbo. Ignoring the past, she tries to move forward. There is theatre. Love. New friendships. A new neighbourhood. But the accident haunts her, forcing her to confront herself and the experience in ways she could never have predicted.

Sally Pryor, writing for The Canberra Times, describes My Sweet Guillotine as a book for those who enjoy reading about the lives and experiences of others:

Above all, My Sweet Guillotine is also a love letter – an older, wiser love letter to Paris, a place that has a majestic, wonderful indifference to her and her needs, and yet seems able to fulfil them so completely.