The Devil’s Pool

One of George Sand’s pastoral novels of the Berry region, this short 1846 book follows Germain, a widowed farmer whose father-in-law urges him to remarry for the good of his three children. Sent to court a well-off widow in a distant village, he sets out with his small son and Marie, a poor sixteen-year-old girl looking for work. A wrong turn strands the three of them overnight beside the pool of the title, and in that quiet interval Germain begins to see where his heart truly lies. Sand writes the French countryside and its working people with unusual tenderness, and the result is a small, warm story about love found close to home. A free PDF and EPUB edition are available here.