Lucy Checks In

A sparkling romantic comedy about a down-on-her luck, middle-aged hospitality manager who sets off to France to revive a historic hotel.

In Lucy Checks In, Dee Ernst delivers a delightfully eccentric, mid-life reinvention story. 

Broke and single, heartbroken and childless, Lucia “Lucy” Gianetti feels kicked to the curb by fate and her own bad choices. The once-ambitious and successful, 49-year-old--former hospitality manager of an upscale, New York City hotel--mixed business with pleasure to overwhelming detriment. Her boss and beau swindled millions and pinned the blame on Lucy, forcing her into unemployment and living back home with her parents while trying to clear her good name. Two years later, downtrodden Lucy is offered a job to manage the historic Hotel Paradis in Rennes, France. She jumps at the chance to ditch the detritus of her woeful life, picturing posh, passionate Francophile glories to rescue her. However, when she arrives, she’s confronted with a run-down, centuries-old hotel in as dire need of a rehabilitative make-over as she is. Faced with the Herculean task of transforming the haunted, family-owned Paradis into a charming tourist attraction in six months, Lucy dives into the challenge—fraught by quirky, exasperating contractors, hotel staff and long-term residents, including a handsome--and self-important--artist who is as willful as she is. Can he make her believe in love again?

 

Witty, snarky romantic comedies set in France--fast-paced stories that feature strong female protagonists steeped in the throes of midlife--have become Ernst’s (Maggie Finds Her Muse) specialty. In Lucy Checks In, she takes readers on another exciting, ‘it’s never too late to start again’ heartwarming adventure.

 

Lucy Checks In: A Novel by Dee Ernst

St. Martin’s Griffin (MacMillan), $16.99 paperback, 288 pages, 9781250844583

Publication Date: August 16, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND link HERE

 

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 (August 19, 2022), link HERE

When Sparks Fly

A passionate, feel-good small-town romance about old friends whose sudden attraction challenges what they thought they wanted out of life.

Over four books, romance author Jo McNally has treated readers to tender contemporary love stories set in the small fictional town of Rendezvous Falls in Upstate New York. Challenges of real life--and subsequent consequences--always play a part in her multi-generational stories set in locales such as the local vineyard (Slow Dancing at Sunrise), a B&B (Stealing Kisses in the Snow), the flower shop (Love Blooms) and via an apartment rental (Barefoot on a Starlit Night).

 

In the fifth book, When Sparks Fly, McNally focuses on Zoe Hartford, a 40-year-old, self-employed, ‘fix-it’ appliance and auto repairwoman whose confidence is down since a traumatic divorce. The hard-working single mother is determined to restore stability and normalcy to the life of her rebellious, 13-year-old daughter, Hazel. When Zoe starts to have romantic feelings for Mike--a lawyer, now a widower who’s been one of Zoe’s best friends since high school--complications ensue. Will their dear and cherished friendship be put at risk by sparking up a romance after all these years? And might the couple’s relationship drive a wedge in the mother-daughter bond?

 

The joys and tribulations of small-town life--and other love stories therein--offer a colorful backdrop to this passionate, down-to-earth romance where members of a meddling match-making book club offer wit and levity. A subplot involving Zoe’s house and place of business nicely binds up several plot threads. Readers who enjoy stories about the toil of true love will feel right at home in the comforts of this continuing series.

 

When Sparks Fly (A Rendezvous Falls Novel: Book Five) by Jo McNally 

HQN Books – Original Edition, $9.99 Mass Market Paperback, 416 pages, 9781335916389

Publication Date: August 9, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND link HERE

 

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 (August 12, 2022), link HERE