Nadine Mousselet, the Queen of the Norman Polar, publishes her 44th thriller with a large publisher
It is called the agatha Christie du Cotentin. It is well found, but a little amazing. First of all because Nadine Mousselet does not live in Normandy, but just on the other side of the Couesnon, in Sains, a small village in Ile and Vilaine. “We were looking for a house in the area, and found in Brittany. But the vast majority of my intrigues are happening between Mont Saint Michel and the landing beaches. This is also where my books are sold. Bookstores, grocery stores, press point or large area. I have 85 points of sale in the Manche department ”.
Go for Cotentin, therefore. And Agatha Christie? We understand, for the contrast between the novels and the appearance of their author: difficult to imagine that this small woman, with laughing eyes behind her butterfly glasses, who receives us at her table (ah! This chocolate mousse!), With her two chihuahuas on our knees, can write horrors like those we have read in her new book, Hand -sewn murders. But there is a big difference between Agatha Christie and Nadine Mousselet, who summarizes her in a smile: “I am more bloody!”
A click with the film The Silence of the Lamb
We would like to be able to tell in detail the trajectory of this Belgian teacher born in 1958, mother of three big children, who arrived forty years ago in this corner of France where she became labradors breeder. But we can only brush the stages that have led him to become a writer. It all starts when her grandmother tells her her intimate newspapers and asks her to tell his story.
We are in the late 1990s. Initiated with IT by Daniel, helicopter pilot in the police, whom she has just married, she hits what she imagines to be a future bestseller. The publishers contacted are less convinced. Whatever, the taste for writing is taken. For the stories of serial killers, this is the film The silence of the lambs which will serve as a click. She will write crime stories. First news, published in the female press, then a first novel.
The first publisher she meets only publishes novels anchored in Normandy. Never mind, she resumes her manuscript. Murderous blackmailwhose intrigue was located in Belgium, becomes Buried blackmail in Avranches. Nadine Farfouille in her library to show me a copy. The head of a horse adorns the blanket. “It’s chocolate,” she breathes. I have mounted it for years. He died a month ago … “And his gaze gets fucked.
She will confide a little later: “The only thing I am incapable of in my books is to hurt an animal”. For humans, on the other hand, no problem: in each novel, she imagines a new way of killing, described of a clinical pen to make her readers benefit from everything she learns in the works of legal medicine that are piling up in her library.
44 pounds including a majority of “regional” thrillers
“When I give fewer macabre details, readers want me again,” she explains. So she gives a layer, is looking for new refinements. And the corpses are piled up. We are almost surprised when she confides that once, faced with the suffering of her characters, she cried while writing. For the rest, the method is well established. “I first choose a place that inspires me and I go into tracking. I take photos, I am looking for a nice restoration where my characters can have lunch, and also a good place to hide a body … Then I write, by instinct, chapter after chapter, without knowing, the turn that the intrigue will take. »»
It is difficult to believe her as her books are breathless! 44 To date, including a majority of “regional” thrillers. 22 of them stage her favorite character, psycho-criminologist Laura Claes. “It’s a bit of me … with thirty years less, and more sporty” says the one who has long practiced horse riding … and pistol shot.
Between 100 and 120 signing sessions per year
All these novels are published by Adena, the house she climbed with Daniel. “It is not self-publishing, but a real structure, with an accounting balance sheet,” she insists proudly. My books have a barcode, and can be sold in shops and supermarkets. ” Those of the Cotentin are not mistaken, installing in majesty each new title. Nadine organizes there between 100 and 120 signing sessions per year. “I like to meet my readers-who are 75% of readers,” she explains. Once, a woman said to me: “The only thing that bothers me in your books is the smells”. What a beautiful tribute! ».
One day, in a small thriller in the thriller, as she signs in turn, a journalist offers her to write her portrait. This appeared on November 17, 2023, on the last page of Figaro. At 11 a.m., the same day, Nadine’s phone rings. XO editions – “Those by Bernard Minier, of which I read all the books!” – want to read and meet it. “Do you imagine?” They receive several hundred manuscripts a year, and it was I chose … I went to meet them, on the 47th floor of the Montparnasse tower. Vertiginous, to all the senses of the word… ”. Hand -sewn murders is now available in the big bookstores in France. Certainly, we will have to find a new nickname in Nadine Mousselet!
