Book Review of The Summer of France by Paulita Kincer

I was the lucky winner of THE SUMMER OF FRANCE in a competition on Delana du Jour’s blog just before Christmas. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again entering online competitions is well worth it!

In this book we meet Fia, married to a safe and sensible husband and Mom to teenage twins, who feels the need for something to change following the loss of her job and wants to bring her family closer together. That something comes from a call from her Uncle who fought in France during the war, met a French girl, stayed and is now running a Provencal B&B in wife Lucie’s family home. Now nearing retirement Lucie and Martin want a break and ask Fia to help. However, things don’t go quite as planned and she soon finds herself alone and working hard while her family all go their separate ways exploring France and the French. It soon becomes apparent that there may be skeletons and secrets hidden in Uncle Martins closet and a break in at the B&B makes Fia realise someone is looking for something. But who does she trust and who can help her to put things right?

Paulita’s descriptions bring the colours of Provence to life in this fast moving book that got my pulse racing at some points. It is a book of two stories, Uncle Martin’s and Fia’s and despite sometimes finding books like this a little difficult to follow I thought the two stories running together worked very well. There is (bien sur) a hunky Frenchman, but I would have been disappointed if there hadn’t been and there are lots of ‘will they, won’t they’ moments between the characters. As the book draws to a close there is a good mad dash and adrenalin-pumping chase that meant it was hard to put down.

If you are a fan of the Meg Ryan movie French Kiss [DVD] [1995], or enjoy reading Juliette Sobanet books you should enjoy this one.

You can read more from Paulita on her blog http://paulita-ponderings.blogspot.fr/