Book review of You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

Romantic comedy writer Amber Page is stuck in a rut.

After her editor tells her she needs to "up the spice" in her books (literally Amber's worst nightmare...), she is at a crossroads of what to do with her career.

When the opportunity arises to go on a writer's retreat at an exclusive château in the beautiful French Alps, Amber reluctantly agrees, hoping a change of scenery will help with inspiration.

While she tries and fails to spice up her writing - with the unhelpful guidance of the eccentric romance writers at the château - she meets two leading men who cause her own real-life romantic comedy to unfold...

A laugh-out-loud love triangle, forced proximity romantic comedy from million-copy bestseller Portia MacIntosh.

You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

My review

I bonded with Amber from the beginning of this book. Her life seemed to be one disaster after another, starting with her parents announcing a pre-divorce, a disastrous meeting with her editor - who she isn’t seeing eye to eye with, and the simmering stress of her writing not going anywhere and her deadline fast approaching. What should have been the opportunity of a lifetime, to join her respected contemporaries at a writing retreat in the French Alps, revealed things aren’t always how you imagine them to be, especially when they were reluctant to let her into their established friendship circle.

Luckily, as she stumbles from one nightmare situation to another, there are lots of laughs to diffuse the tension, and she has her brother Tom to sound out on about their parents.  Then there is the resort she is sent to, which is a picture-perfect Christmas wonderland, with snowy scenes outside, crackling log fires inside and delicious food at every mealtime. Add into the mix an unlikely friendship with famous influencer Caleb, who she had met in the most hilarious of situations, and the strange world she finds herself transported to, doesn’t seem so bad after all.

You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

I loved this book, devouring it in a matter of hours, but it was the humour that was the icing on the cake for me. I’m not always convinced by book blurb that claims ‘laugh out loud’ but I can’t think of a better way to describe the snorting and chuckling this book caused me. Do read this book, but it’s probably better not to read it in quiet public spaces.

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French Village Diaries is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk at no extra cost to you.

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Portia MacIntosh

Author Bio  

Portia MacIntosh is the bestselling author of over 20 romantic comedy novels. From disastrous dates to destination weddings, Portia’s romcoms are the perfect way to escape from day to day life, visiting sunny beaches in the summer and snowy villages at Christmas time. Whether it’s southern Italy or the Yorkshire coast, Portia’s stories are the holiday you’re craving, conveniently packed in between the pages.

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You had me at Château by Portia MacIntosh

 

La vie est Belle

A bike ride along the river Belle, Deux-Sèvres

La Vie est Belle

 

September, how could you, my birth month, have been so disappointing weatherwise this year? I have vivid memories of September 2004, our first full month in France, where temperatures regularly topped 30º, breakfasts, lunches and dinners were eaten outside, and it seemed summers in France would go on forever.

Looking back on twenty years of photos, sunny days, hot bike rides, touristy days out under blue skies, and sultry vistas of our orchard looking crisp and dry at the end of the season are far more common than the low-hung grey skies, vivid greens of soggy water-logged land and the stormy days you have showered on us this year.

Had we been blessed with a summer of endless sunny days a moist September might have come as a welcome relief. As it was, summer had hardly seemed to get going as August drew to a close, and I was eagerly anticipating a September where foggy mornings gave way to hot afternoons, where despite the shortening of the days, evenings were still warm enough to be outdoor events. The disappointment of a September that has been so far from my expectations has been hard to accept.

Terra Aventura parcours, Exireuil, Deux-Sèvres

As October arrives, so does the ominous date of the 14^th, marking exactly one year since the weather turned, becoming wet and unsettled following a gorgeous six-week period of late summer heat. This year, I think I’d be hard pushed to count six decent, hot days in the last six weeks, but I do know we have made the most of them, often following the routes and answering the questions on the Terra Aventura geocaching app. This has seen us clambering over boulders in the river gorge, as we explored les puits d’enfer (hell’s wells) in Exireuil, alongside the military town of Saint-Maixent-l’Ecole in the Deux-Sèvres, as well as discovering hidden gems in Civray and Charroux in the Vienne.

A September sunset ride

The Bromptons continue to be our faithful companions, whether to and from work, enjoying rarely glimpsed sunsets after work, or the glowing autumnal colours of Chef-Boutonne on market day. We also discovered the Belle valley, less than thirty kilometres from home, where lavoirs, lost lanes and fairy bridges hidden in the trees reminded us that la vie est belle, life is beautiful (whatever the weather).

Sunshine in Charmé, Charente

I have yet to cycle my traditional 100km in a day birthday bike ride, something I have been doing since September 2015, although we did manage a fabulous 93km on the 20^th September. Our route took us through the Charente vineyards ripe with fruit, past Romanesque churches, lavoirs and fields of sunflowers with drooping seed heads, awaiting harvest. In Mansle, on the banks of the Charente River, we enjoyed a coup de soleil from a local patisserie. This new to us delight had a base of an apricot clafoutis with a lightly whipped topping of crème patisserie and Chantilly cream and was a real burst of sunshine in our mouths. Sadly, with storm clouds and thunder rolling in around us, we didn’t risk adding on the required seven kilometres to hit the 100. Ten days later and it seems the stormy showers and high winds, although interspersed with sunny spells, are still with us. I’ve had enough. Like the lizards I watch soaking up the heat on the steps of the château, I need to recharge my solar panels before winter arrives.

I can only hope that October gives us some respite from the cold and damp before winter truly sets in. 

  

Book review of Christmas at the Little Paris Hotel by Rebecca Raisin

Christmas at the Little Paris Hotel by Rebecca Raisin

Christmas at the Little Paris Hotel by Rebecca Raisin

Turn a tumbledown Paris hotel into a perfect boutique, bookish retreat, and have it open for Christmas? What could possibly go wrong?

When Anais receives a near-derelict Paris hotel in her divorce settlement, her first thought is to tidy it up and sell it immediately. All she wants is to move on and forget her disaster of a marriage ever happened.

But selling it proves impossible, so she has only one option: to make it gorgeous and open by Christmas… when her funds will almost certainly run out.

She’s not counting on the grumpy American bar-owner next door, Noah, coming and interfering at every moment though. Nor is she expecting to find a mysterious room – which holds the key to a one-hundred-year-old secret – about a woman who chose love against the odds.

One thing’s for sure… as the fairy lights twinkle all over the city of lights and the first snowflakes start to fall… this will be a Christmas in Paris to remember.

A totally gorgeous, escapist romantic comedy, with an unforgettable mystery! A perfect festive read for fans of Emily Henry and Sarah Morgan to curl up with this winter.

Christmas at the Little Paris Hotel by Rebecca Raisin

My review

Romance author, Anais is well shot of her phoney ex-husband, but the only thing she has walked away with in the divorce settlement is a run-down boutique hotel in Paris and a simmering anger towards overbearing men. With her cousin Manon by her side, she is determined to get the hotel partially renovated and open before Christmas, with her ultimate goal being to show others it has potential, sell it and finally move on from a few traumatic years. 

The hotel, however, has other ideas. As the renovations begin, it slowly reveals secrets from its past, including a literary mystery that needs unravelling and solving. With a little help from her friends, Anais begins to heal her broken heart, bring the hotel back to its former glory and discovers a romance or two along the way. 

Christmas at the Little Paris Hotel by Rebecca Raisin

This book was an absolute delight for a literary nerd like me, containing references to some of the great Parisian novels from the past as well as cameo appearances from the characters in A Love Letter to Paris, one of my favourite books this summer, also by Rebecca Raisin – but that is not all. Two of my favourite ‘new life in Paris’ memoirs also get a starring role; Paris Letters by Janice Macleod (that I read and reviewed on the blog in 2014) and the emotionally honest Meet Me in Paris (2015) by Juliette Sobanet (whose romance novel Sleeping with Paris just happened to be my first introduction to kindle ebooks a very long time ago).  It was a stroke of genius and I can’t describe how wide the grin was on my face as I read this book.

With local knowledge of the Christmas hotspots and Parisian literary must-sees, I am sure anyone who loves the magic of Paris will fall under the spell of this book like I did. My only disappointment was that I couldn’t get straight on to Booking.com and reserve a suite for a romantic weekend away this winter. 

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French Village Diaries is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk at no extra cost to you.

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Rebecca Raisin

Author Bio  

Rebecca Raisin writes heartwarming romance from her home in sunny Perth, Australia. Her heroines tend to be on the quirky side and her books are usually set in exotic locations so her readers can armchair travel any day of the week.

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You can read my reviews of some of Rebecca’s previous novels here:

A Love Letter to Paris 

Elodie’s Library of Second Chances 

Christmas at the Little Paris Hotel by Rebecca Raisin

Book review of The Resistance Bakery by Siobhan Curham

The Resistance Bakery by Siobhan Curham

The Resistance Bakery by Siobhan Curham

Paris, 1943. The scent of fresh baguettes hangs in the air as Coralie unbolts the door to her bakery with trembling fingers. She must get out of the city. Hiding her precious leather recipe book inside her coat, she promises never to let the secret locations of the people she worked tirelessly to save fall into German hands…

Present day. Raven is unhappy about being shipped off to the other side of the country for the summer to stay with the mysterious French grandmother she barely knows. And discovering a tattered, leather-bound book with yellowed pages full of handwritten recipes and coded numbers, she is stunned.

Her grandmother has never baked for her. And she refuses to talk about Paris, or the past. Flipping through the book, a faded photograph of a laughing couple falls out. As Raven scans the writing on the back she can scarcely believe her eyes…

What really happened in that tiny French bakery all those years ago? And could this forgotten recipe book finally bring healing to a woman still haunted by wartime secrets? Or has Raven’s discovery shattered any chance of bonding with her grandmother, before her time runs out?

The Resistance Bakery is an unforgettable page-turner about forbidden love and family secrets in World War Two. Fans of The Letter, The Nightingale and Fiona Valpy will be totally hooked.

The Resistance Bakery by Siobhan Curham 

My review

The Resistance Bakery is another moving, historical fiction from Siobhan Curham that made me think about the dark days of the Occupation in a different light. Having read several books set during this time, this is the first fiction book I’ve encountered to acknowledge the horrific economic situation the Germans had to endure in the inter-war years, something that undoubtably had a huge part to play in the second world war.

We know from the prologue what Coralie does as she bakes her last patisseries for the Germans occupying the prestigious Lutetia Hotel in Paris. The dual timeline then guides us tantalizingly slowly, through what led her to make such a risky move, as she looks back on her war story with granddaughter Raven, a troubled teenager in 1980’s America. This happens forty years after she fled the hotel kitchen and is the first time she has revealed the horrors she witnessed during the Occupation.

The Resistance Bakery by Siobhan Curham

Coralie and Raven were both free-thinking, outspoken women who were braver than they imagined, and I enjoyed watching the relationship between them develop. As they learned about each other, they were able to break down some of the barriers they had both been hiding behind and ultimately help each other navigate the future.

Food played an important role in this novel and I loved the idea of Coralie folding emotions and feelings into her baking, and how food connected so many of the characters, despite differences of generation or nationality.

I think my favourite character had to be Madame Monteux, Coralie’s benefactor in Paris. She was colourful, positive and almost always full of optimism despite the desperate situation they found themselves living in. The vivid image of her Madame Butterfly Metro performance will stay with me for a long time.

This isn’t just another novel set during the Occupation, Siobhan has once again come up with something refreshingly different, emotional and thought-provoking. There were some things I thought might happen as I was reading, but there were also surprises and twists, that turned out to be the icing on the cake. 

As I finished reading, I looked up the Lutetia Hotel online, feeling such a connection to it from this book, and wanting to make sure it really did exist – it does and looks to be just as majestic as it’s described. I’m just not sure I’ll ever be lucky enough to book into a suite there for the night though.

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French Village Diaries is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk at no extra cost to you.

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Siobhan Curham

Author Bio

Siobhan Curham is an award-winning author, ghost writer, editor and writing coach. She has also written for many newspapers, magazines and websites, including The Guardian, Breathe magazine, Cosmopolitan, Writers’ Forum, DatingAdvice.com, and Spirit & Destiny. Siobhan has been a guest on various radio and TV shows, including Woman’s Hour, BBC News, GMTV and BBC Breakfast. And she has spoken at businesses, schools, universities and literary festivals around the world, including the BBC, Hay Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Bath Festival, Ilkley Festival, London Book Fair and Sharjah Reading Festival.

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You can read my reviews of some of Siobhan’s previous books here:

The Secret Keeper 

The Paris Network 

Beyond This Broken Sky 

An American in Paris 

Book review of Falling for Provence by Alison Roberts

Falling for Provence by Alison Roberts

Falling for Provence by Alison Roberts

She came to Provence in the hope of a fresh start, she never expected she would fall in love in and find herself along the way.

Inheriting an old stone house in Provence, along with her sisters is the catalyst Ellie Gilchrist needs to put some distance between her and her grief. But when she arrives at the run down ‘La Masionette’ hidden amongst overgrown Lavender and Ivy, she wonders if she’s made a mistake?

That is until she meets her guarded neighbour Julien and his adorable little boy, and she’s surprised by the flutters of excitement she never thought she’d feel again. Add in rescuing a stray dog and she has the much needed distraction she needs. Ellie decides to stay temporarily and work on bringing the little house back to life again. If only she can ignore the fireworks that explode every time she’s around Julien. They both have hearts they want to protect, but a little temporary affaire can’t be too dangerous, especially when Ellie has stated she will be leaving after the last summer market of the season. But something in the alchemy of what she discovers in this part of France seems to be casting an irresistible spell making it difficult to walk away.

Falling for Provence by Alison Roberts

My review

Alison Roberts is a new writer for me, but it didn’t take long before I was looking her up to see what else she has written, and it came as no surprise to read that she had spent some time living in France. Her experience, love and passion for French life was evident from the beginning of the book.

Within the first few chapters we had a heroine suffering from a personal trauma - who desperately needed the healing only a dose of France can provide, a moody, troubled Frenchman who I couldn’t wait to learn more about, plus a shiny red bicycle with a basket, a stray dog and two donkeys, to say nothing of the olive grove and lemon orchard in Provence. Needless to say, I was so happy in this book, I didn’t want it to end. 

Falling for Provence by Alison Roberts

Ellie’s task of breathing new life into a forgotten Provencal house that she and her sister’s had unexpectantly inherited, was the perfect change of scenery she needed at a difficult time in her life. There were plenty of emotional situations, trauma and heartache in this book, but they were always treated sensitively and with care. As the characters created new memories, they began to heal hearts broken through no fault of their own. Ellie’s time in France ultimately changed not only her life, but the lives of many of the characters.

There was nothing I didn’t enjoy in this book. It was colourful, healing, hot and calming all at once, as well as being a little crazy at times too. It truly was a feast for all my senses as Alison’s exquisite descriptions of food, place and emotions came to life. I can’t wait to read more from Alison.

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French Village Diaries is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk at no extra cost to you.

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Alison Roberts

Author Bio  

Alison Roberts is the author of over one hundred romance novels, joining Boldwood to write ‘wish you were here’ fiction set in the South of France.

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Falling for Provence by Alison Roberts