Prolific author Jenn McKinlay (Buried
to the Brim) departs from her long-running series and delivers a fun,
feel-good, stand-alone novel that will delight readers. Paris Is Always a Good
Idea, a bittersweet story, focuses on a disillusioned woman in her 30s
who sets off on an exciting worldwide adventure.
After college, Chelsea Martin goes
through seven years of struggle. Her beloved mother dies, and grief-stricken
Chelsea buries herself in work, becoming a corporate fund-raising star for a
prominent cancer coalition in Boston. When her "buttoned-down" mathematician
father, a widower, proposes to a woman he's known for only two weeks, Chelsea
suddenly takes stock of her own life, wondering why she isn't happy or in a
fulfilling romantic relationship of her own.
Chelsea decides, on a lark, to return
to a time in her life when she believed she was happy and carefree--full of
love and joy, hope and promise. Taking a much-needed sabbatical from her
successful career, she winds her way through Europe to try to recapture the
spirit of the woman she once was--retracing a route she traveled after college.
She seeks out and revisits old flames, starting in a quaint, small town in
Ireland; returning to the glittering lights of romantic Paris; then on to a
vineyard tucked into the rolling hills of Tuscany. By reuniting with lovable
old beaus in the hope of rekindling romance in each picturesque locale, Chelsea
learns much about herself and what she truly wants from life.
Readers will savor the feisty,
adventurous journey of McKinlay's
self-deprecating protagonist as she re-examines her past in order to chart her
future.
Paris
is Always a Good Idea: A Novel by Jenn McKinlay
Berkley, $16.00 Paperback, 9780593101353, 352
pages
Publication Date: July 21, 2020
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NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted
with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 24, 2020), link HERE
To read the longer form of this review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (June 26, 2020), link HERE