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

Women in Sunlight

Four very different American women experience reinvention and self-discovery when they settle in Tuscany and explore all that Italy has to offer.

Frances Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun, Under Magnolia) returns to the sensuous glories of Italy in her beautifully rendered and richly woven novel Women inSunlight. 

Catherine "Kit" Raine is an American expat in her late 30s. She has lived and worked as a successful writer and poet nestled in the Tuscan hills of San Rocco for 12 years. Her current project is a biography of fellow American Margaret Merrill--an older woman, good friend and a writer whom Kit admired--who set down roots in Tuscany much earlier.

When Margaret died, she surprisingly bequeathed her estate to Kit. Their friendship was at times rocky and difficult. However, Margaret's posthumous generosity made a lasting impression on Kit. In trying to broaden the readership of Margaret's work--and better understand her enigmatic friend--Kit grapples with memories on the page that lead Kit to examine her own life and future.

Kit's quest deepens when three American women--and their unruly dog--move into the villa next door. The three women are new friends, all retired, who met at an orientation for a 55-and-over retirement community near their homes in Chapel Hill, N.C. The threesome are still vital and active enough to assert their independence. 

Mayes's writing glimmers with masterful sensory descriptions. Readers can practically taste the white foam that tops cappuccinos, step into elongated shadows cast by cypress trees and feel the echoing cold retained amid old stone villas. Mayes delivers another intimate story, told in lively episodes, that details how unexpected friendships can lead to reinvention and bright new beginnings at any age.

Women in Sunlight: A Novel by Frances Mayes

Crown, $27.00 Hardcover,  9780451497666, 448  pages

Publication Date: April 3, 2018

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 (April 24, 2018), link HERE