Author: Gillian Harvey
Published: March 15, 2024 by Boldwood Books
Format: Kindle, 314 Pages
Genre: Women's Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
First Sentence: Prologue. George was just stepping out of the café, takeway coffee in hand, when he saw Grace appear in the window of the tabac opposite.
Blurb: When Leah and her husband moved to France, it was with the dream of becoming self-sufficient. But in truth, it’s not the ‘good life’ she’d imagined, as three hours of digging barely yield a single straggly carrot. Worse, her teenage daughter is acting up, and her husband seems to find every strange excuse under the hot French sun to disappear.
So when her friend entreats her to join the new bookclub she’s forming, Leah decides it’s something she will do for herself. The chance to make new friends, to drink a few glasses of wine, and to escape into stories that take her miles away from the life she’d thought would be her own happy-ever-after.
But the book club is a strange group of misfits. There’s prickly Grace, who lives alone and seems to know everybody and like no-one. Buttoned-up Monica, who says her husband is away and appears to be parenting her baby all alone. Handsome builder George, who has barely read a book before. And Alfie – who is a full two decades younger than everyone else, and is hiding a devastating secret…
As the stories they read begin to bring the new friends closer together, Leah is about to discover that happy-ever-afters don’t always look how you expect them to
My Opinion: The novel begins with an ensemble cast—an introduction that left me grappling to remember who’s who. Yet, as the story unfolds, each character finds a distinct voice, but still hits me as just a bunch of sad people reading about other sad people.
Within the club meet-ups, they read the classics about troubled lives and find their own struggles and characters they can relate to within the pages. Themes of friendship, new beginnings, and reinvention run through the pages. They eventually learn that the members of their little group are the salve that is needed to get through their own troubled lives.
Unexpectedly for them, this ragtag group evolves into true friendships that go beyond their difference and open doors for brighter futures.
I believe ‘The Bordeaux Book Club’ is a standalone, but I wouldn’t mind revising this group further down the road.
Blurb: When Leah and her husband moved to France, it was with the dream of becoming self-sufficient. But in truth, it’s not the ‘good life’ she’d imagined, as three hours of digging barely yield a single straggly carrot. Worse, her teenage daughter is acting up, and her husband seems to find every strange excuse under the hot French sun to disappear.
So when her friend entreats her to join the new bookclub she’s forming, Leah decides it’s something she will do for herself. The chance to make new friends, to drink a few glasses of wine, and to escape into stories that take her miles away from the life she’d thought would be her own happy-ever-after.
But the book club is a strange group of misfits. There’s prickly Grace, who lives alone and seems to know everybody and like no-one. Buttoned-up Monica, who says her husband is away and appears to be parenting her baby all alone. Handsome builder George, who has barely read a book before. And Alfie – who is a full two decades younger than everyone else, and is hiding a devastating secret…
As the stories they read begin to bring the new friends closer together, Leah is about to discover that happy-ever-afters don’t always look how you expect them to
My Opinion: The novel begins with an ensemble cast—an introduction that left me grappling to remember who’s who. Yet, as the story unfolds, each character finds a distinct voice, but still hits me as just a bunch of sad people reading about other sad people.
Within the club meet-ups, they read the classics about troubled lives and find their own struggles and characters they can relate to within the pages. Themes of friendship, new beginnings, and reinvention run through the pages. They eventually learn that the members of their little group are the salve that is needed to get through their own troubled lives.
Unexpectedly for them, this ragtag group evolves into true friendships that go beyond their difference and open doors for brighter futures.
I believe ‘The Bordeaux Book Club’ is a standalone, but I wouldn’t mind revising this group further down the road.
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