“As two lives collide, will love bloom on the French Riviera?”
- Book: The Riviera House Swap
- Location: French Riviera (Cote d'Azur)
- Author: Gillian Harvey
Nina’s divorce papers come through on her fortieth birthday and her ex-husband makes it clear that he expects the family home to be sold. Nina decides that enough is enough and she is fed up with playing it safe and being sensible. It’s time to take a few risks and choose excitement over security for a change, before it’s too late.
Even after all this time, Nina is still hung up over her first love, Frenchman Pierre, whom she met aged 17, when she was part of an exchange trip with her school. She remembers how beautiful, thoughtful and poetic he had seemed, making her heart race, especially when he had begged her not to return to England when the exchange was over, but to run away with him. She goes online and with relative ease, manages to track him down to the same small town, where he is now the owner/manger of a chain of Patisseries.
Silly as it may sound, she decides that the only way to find out if their relationship could ever have a second chance, is by heading to France for an extended break, in the hope of ‘accidentally’ bumping into the enigmatic Pierre. Acting completely out of character, Nina hands in her notice at work and searches for a short-term house swap, with someone who wants to spend some time in England, whilst the sale of her home goes through. She can’t believe her luck, when almost immediately French businessman Jean-Luc agrees to swap his idyllic, spacious, bougainvillea-strewn villa on the French Riviera, for her rather mundane estate house.
The place is dreamlike, the town exactly as Nina remembers it and a convenient café across the road from Pierre’s office means that she has already managed to catch a glimpse of him. Then, Nina’s peace is shattered by the unexpected arrival of Jean-Luc’s sister Sabine, who knows nothing of the house swap arrangement. Sabine moves into the house and Nina, despite not wanting to, begins to like the vivacious woman and her carefree lifestyle.
Jean-Luc also has a younger brother Antoine, a widower and father, who runs the local repair garage and who takes an instant shine to Nina. When Sabine decides to move things along for Nina and Pierre asks her out, everyone assumes that this is going to be the start of a beautiful romance. However, Pierre’s actions are not those of a man smitten and wanting to rekindle an old flame, in fact anything but. They do say that love is blind, but it takes Nina a seemingly inordinate amount of time and almost one of the most fatal mistakes she has ever made in her life, before she opens her eyes to the reality of the situation and her own rather naïve stupidity.
Can she salvage any of her dreams of a new beginning?
…
Contemporary romance is not usually one of my preferred genres and simply by reading the premise, I knew that I might have to suspend belief in reality just a little to read this story. So, whilst being fully aware of exactly what I was letting myself in for, I was prepared to go along for what turned into a very bumpy ride for Nina.
Well written in short punchy chapters, this entertaining story moved along at quite a pace, in a dual timeline format – the present day and flashbacks back to when Nina was a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl – both told in her own words and replete with her own unique and individual style of delivery.
Whilst as an outsider, the storyline was a little predictable and I could probably have worked out very early on, how this inspirational, escapist adventure and leap of blind faith was going to end for Nina, I was quite happy to enjoy the journey and let it to play out at its own pace, even though I knew it wasn’t going to look pretty when Nina finally removed the blinkers!
As well as being a definite page-turner, as I found myself literally shouting at Nina not to be so stupid and to wake up and smell the roses, author Gillian Harvey also filled the storyline with some well placed descriptive snippets featuring the sights and ambience of this particular region of France. Not enough to overwhelm the senses, but sufficient to make me wish I was there and able to offer Nina some much needed advice in person. That tantalising cover art really does help set the scene for this particular novel.
There was a relatively small cast of principle characters and whilst I may not have connected with all of them, I was quite happy to be in their company, with the exception of the nauseating and duplicitous Pierre who got off far too lightly as far as I’m concerned. Sabine added a touch of spontaneity, levity and French joie de vivre to the occasion, whilst the erstwhile Antoine was the perfect gentleman to the end. Nina had some pretty quirky ideas about relationships and what she expected from them, so I am just keeping my fingers crossed that she reaches the right decision in the end.
So, whilst there was no real Wow! factor for me, the story nonetheless ended in such a way that the possibilities are there for a sequel.. maybe?
Please wait...
