Between Two Lives / Entre Deux Vies is a poetry collection that was published by Crumps Barn Studio in May 2025.
It is a lyrical exploration of love, motherhood, daughterhood, resilience and belonging, written in the form of simple but impactful poems, carrying the reader through a story.
Moving between two countries, Laetitia oscillates between tending to her mother’s fragile health in France and sustaining her own family and life in her adopted country, England.
Through vivid scenes in Paris, hospital rooms and train carriages, and quiet reflections at home, she navigates the tension of being pulled in several directions and roles – between her mother and her husband and daughters, between her two countries, between her two languages and between her two identities.
This collection is both a tender homage to her mother and an intimate portrait of a woman rediscovering her voice, her roots and her identity ‘between two lives’.
You can order it on Amazon, Waterstones, bookshop.org etc., or from your local bookshop (see below).
NB: prices change all the time on these websites so unless you have a preference, it’s worth checking them all out.
With illustrations by Laetitia’s daughter, Ceya
What is your relationship with your mum like?
Does she live far from you (several hours’ drive or train ride/flight)?
Do you have young children?
Are you an only child?
Is your mum an only child?
I didn’t think a back operation would lead us down a road of complications and horrible side effects, over so many months.
I certainly didn’t expect a poetry collection to come out of it.
I live in the UK.
My mum lives in France.
I have a 12-year-old and a 16-year-old.
This is the story, in poems, of our ordeal – a bittersweet story.
It’s also a story about identity and being split between two countries as an expat.
I have lived in the UK for 30 years, so going back to my country so often was bound to have an effect at the deep level of identity…
This book is for you if:
- you find yourself split between two countries, or at least between two generations, having to still look after your young ones and also your now ageing parent(s)
- you are experiencing a split in your identity
- you love travel, and especially Paris and France
