Author pens a love story for the ages

When we think of a love story, the same plot usually comes to mind: a heterosexual couple falls in love, faces adversity, and emerges with their relationship stronger than ever.

But this definition of a love story isn't entirely accurate, because there are so many types of love: the love between a parent and child, say, or the love between siblings.

Is that love any less powerful? Less deserving of the epic title: a love story?

Wildly popular French author Anna Gavalda doesn't think so, and her latest novel, 'Billie,” (Europa, $15) explores the powerful friendship between Billie, a young woman with a difficult past, and Franck, a young man with a past of his own.

Their friendship, their love - which spans over 15 years - is one for the ages, as is Gavalda's text.

The novel begins with Billie and Franck lying injured in the bottom of a crevice in Cevennes National Park in France.

The situation, Billie explains, isn't good. And as evening sets in Billie begins to recount the story of her and Franck to a star in the distance, one 'slightly misaligned in the sky. Slightly set back from the herd.”

And while the story is certainly powerful what's more is the way Billie recounts it: with prose as fierce and clear as a country night sky.

We move through her childhood, to her befriending Franck, to how his kindness was so out of place to Billie it felt like a slap in the face. And while life would come between them like waves of water, they never remained far from one another, buoying back together, the one constant in each other's lives. Because 'love is total or it's not love.”

Billie is a remarkable novel that feels like more than a work of literature. It hits with the power of a once-in-a-lifetime play, a show that's only happening for one night. That you witnessed and will never forget, or missed and will always regret. That's Billie. And that's love, too, right?