Book review of A French Pirouette by Jennifer Bohnet

My review today is for A French Pirouette by Jennifer Bohnet. This is a beautifully written, gentle, romance novel centred around the small auberge in a quiet village in Brittany.

A cover full of promise

Over one summer at the auberge we meet three different women whose lives are brought together at a time when they all have challenges to face. Libby, a widow from London is approaching her fortieth birthday and wondering if she can fulfil the dream she and her husband once had, Suzette, a ballet dancer from Paris is facing the prospect of having to retire from the stage and Brigitte, the newly retired owner of the auberge now has to make a new life for herself in the village. They all have dreams, fears and decisions they must make but in finding each other they find themselves cocooned in a bond of friendship that gives them the strength to move on. 

I’ve not read many novels set in Brittany, so this made a nice change and Jennifer’s writing made it easy to visualise the village and the auberge set alongside the canal. The ladies aren’t the only characters we meet and I also enjoyed the smouldering passion that arose from Jennifer’s descriptions of long-held gazes that gave off more heat than a steamy sex scene would have done and was far more refined.

This book will be the perfect summer holiday accompaniment and I'm tipping it to be one of this years must reads. It made me smile, cry and gave me that warm and squishy feeling inside. I couldn’t really ask for more in a chick-lit read.

A French Pirouette is published by Carina and is available in ebook format and a link to Amazon is below. Jennifer lives in Brittany, can be found on Twitter here and her website here.