Published 11th June 2024 by Boldwood Books.
From the cover of the book:
Would you swap houses with a stranger?Nina has always played it safe. But when her divorce papers come through on her fortieth birthday she decides enough is enough.
She’s always chosen the sensible route, staying in her stable job and marrying her rather boring ex. In fact – she realises – she’s chosen security over excitement for years. Ever since she refused to elope with her first love: beautiful, poetic, thoughtful Pierre, the man she met aged 17, on her French exchange. The only man who ever made her heart race.
Maybe it’s time to take a few risks?
Impulsively she goes online and finds another kind of French exchange… a house-swap. She can’t imagine what French businessman Jean-Luc wants with her terraced home in rural England, but she can’t wait to stay in his beautiful, spacious, bougainvillea-strewn villa on the French riviera.
She’s not just there for the house though. She’s decided to find the love she missed all those years ago. But will Pierre still be the man of her dreams after all this time?
As two lives collide, will love bloom on the French riviera? A gorgeously escapist story for fans of The Holiday, from the bestselling author of A Year at the French Farmhouse.
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Nina has spent her life staying firmly within her comfort zone. Her 40th birthday has now arrived, and none of her 'safe' choices has turned out quite how she expected - something made very clear when the anticipated birthday card she opens turns out to be her final divorce papers. It is time to shake up her life a bit and tick off some of those things that have been waiting on her bucket list for far too long.
Reflecting on the past reminds Nina of handsome Pierre, who she met on a French student exchange holiday when she was seventeen, and in a burst of adventurous spirit she decides that a trip to the town where she fell in love might be just the thing to set her on a new path. The ideal opportunity just happens to present itself on a house swap website, so she sets off for a month at a beautiful villa near Nice, while its owner, Jean-Luc, comes to stay in her Victorian terrace in St Albans. Will Pierre still be there? And, if so, could that passionate flame be rekindled?
Gillian Harvey's latest gorgeous, French escapade is a delightful play on The Holiday, which finds forty-year-old Nina picking up the threads of the life her seventeen-year-old self might have had. The story unfurls in two timelines, following Nina's French adventure in the present and the events of the exchange trip in the past that have always stayed with her, which combine to make this something of a coming of age journey for both her forty-year-old and seventeen-year-old-selves.
Harvey floods this book with her trademark themes of friendship, family, and second chances in picturesque France, and the way she explores teenage notions of love is poignantly relatable. There are lovely (and not so lovely) characters to get to know, with storylines that weave romantic suspense and luscious humour throughout - the text and email conversations Nina has with her friends and parents in St Albans, and her lists of Pros and Cons around pivotal decisions are especially comedy gold. But what really makes the story is the relationship Nina develops with tender-heared Antoine and his sister, free-spirited Sabine, in France, who help her on the way to a new destiny.
This book sums up everything I have come to love in Harvey's enchanting stories, carrying you away on an escapist tide to a warm and ahh-filled ending full of hope. Perfect for snuggling up with on the sofa while the unseasonable rain falls outside.
The Riviera House Swap is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Gillian Harvey for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Rachel's Random Resources Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
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Gillian Harvey is a freelance writer and bestselling author who lives in France.
She writes escapist fiction set in France, including bestsellers A Year at the French Farmhouse and A Month in Provence.
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