Clementine's Uncommon Scents

Have you ever been hijacked? By your nose, that is? Have you ever been, at a mere whiff, snatched and catapulted into a time of remembered bliss? Or remembered grief? What if your nose was a veritable time machine transporting and immersing you, mind, body and soul into a past long gone yet as exquisitely vivid as the present? On the surface there is nothing remarkable about Cl mentine's nose: it has only two nostrils and sits roughly in the middle of her face. Yet when it is discovered that the six-year old has in fact the nose of a bloodhound, it soon converts her into a force to be reckoned with in the small hamlet where she is growing up. Is she angel or beast? Her bizarre attribute garners her praise but also subjects her to taunts and insults, until a searing humiliation brings her ambivalence to a tipping point, and upon reaching puberty she makes a decision which will change the course of her life by a few latitudes. How she handles and resolves her strong ambivalence is developed in this olfactory odyssey, a sensuous tale with comedy, drama, and romance, drenched in fragrant magic realism.