A light hearted book, an easy read with many reflections on families, love and life in general. A bit slow to start with , but worth persevering and enjoyable. Some may think a bit far fetched but life can be like that. I’m so sad (mad?) that the only reason this was published was because it was written by a well known actress. Surely no publisher would have snapped up this mess on its own merits. A cinematic denouement followed by an equally dramatic conclusion ties it all in a bow. Actress ( The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) Imrie's lighthearted first novel touches on real-world financial, occupational, and familial concerns of older readers in a way that's genuine and yet reminiscent of old Hollywood movies . . . Recommended for readers seeking a breezy read with a touch of romance and mystery and a heroine they can relate to. Ugh. I’m so disappointed. I was so looking forward to reading this book, the first by Celia Imrie, one of my favourite actresses. I assumed it would be funny and feature older characters finding love. Older character romance is my favourite and so rarely done. There was also the promise of the French riviera and some feminist empowerment.

Celia Imrie: food is one of the great joys of life Celia Imrie: food is one of the great joys of life

Although the story is superficially light, there are two underlying ideas which are quite profound. The first is - don’t expect to understand your children and make expectations for them. The second is - be a bit selfish when the children have flown the nest, and do what you want to do, not what the family or society expect you to do. the virtues of retiring abroad . . . All in all, Imrie's funny, over-the-top romp reads like a screenplay. And who knows, maybe that's just where it's headed? Theresa is desperate for a change. Forced into early retirement and fed up with babysitting her bossy daughter's obnoxious children, she sells her house and moves to the picture-perfect town of Bellevue-sur-Mer, just outside Nice. The weak plot and horrible characters are not even saved by any sort of flowery pretty descriptive passages. There’s water and sunshine and restaurants and… Oh, there’s random foodporn which is also strictly non-French. I was so utterly confused about this. Again, way to immerse yourself in the setting…Theresa is desperate for a change. Forced into early retirement, tired of babysitting her bossy daughter's obnoxious children, she sells her house and moves to a picture-perfect town, just outside Nice. The description of the town is excellent- the old buildings, narrow streets, steep steps, colours of flowers, contrast between sunlight and shadow. Familiar to anyone who has walked through a Mediterranean village, and to the author who dedicated the book “to my pals who brought me here to Nice, and to the city whose beauty saved and inspired me”. Opens: …The small town of Bellevue-Sur-Mer sparkled like a diamond on the French Mediterranean Coast... We often use not quite to mean ‘not completely’. We can use it with adjectives, adverbs, nouns, non-finite clauses, prepositional phrases and wh-clauses:

Nice Series: : Celia Imrie: Bloomsbury Publishing The Nice Series: : Celia Imrie: Bloomsbury Publishing

This was a nice light read, describing the move to a little village just outside Nice on the French Riviera of a woman retrenched, badly treated by her daughter and grandchildren and looking for a new life in her retirement. I read this as an e-book, but I think it would be perfect as an audiobook, because I could just hear Celia Imrie narrating it. Shelve this book under "middle-aged woman rediscovers zest in her life" and "English people misbehaving abroad". This is light-hearted escapism, starting when Theresa, on a whim, buys a house in a lovely seaside town on the Riviera. The small community of English-speaking expatriates, embraces the new arrival, and soon Theresa is enjoying her new life. But it's not all baguettes and vin blanc , and drug dealers, con men and corporate spies soon appear on the scene. There are recipes dotted about between some of the chapters, mainly for Nicoise delicacies, which are always great to see, although as someone who doesn't cook, I can't really test them out or comment further on them.I’m terribly slow, actually, but at the moment I’m reading a book by Colette, My Apprenticeships and Music Hall Sidelights, I suppose because it’s got a theatrical thing going on. I like short stories – Patricia Highsmith’s The Animal-Lover’s Book of Beastly Murder is a favourite. It's Mothers Day in the UK tomorrow and the disrespect and contempt Imogen showed Theresa annoyed me. In this delightful story, Imrie gives the reader a cast of (mostly) charming characters: a widowed ex-actress, a pair of gay men, a narcissistic elderly woman with a flair for cutting remarks, an apparently loving American couple, an Australian lothario and his jealous wife, a timid mother and her bullying son, an ex-prisoner, a self-centred daughter and her three spoiled children, a long-absent hippy son, an over-achieving daughter and a mysterious woman who claims to be recuperating. Quiet /kwaɪət/ and quite /kwaɪt/ are spelt and pronounced differently, and have different meanings. In her debut novel, Imrie has given us a sort of “coming of old age” story. I loved Theresa, though I wanted to shake her a few times when she put up with bad treatment by her ungrateful, selfish daughter and her bratty grandchildren. Still, this is a woman who has always done her best and who is slowly but surely realizing that she deserves some pleasure in life. The cast of supporting characters was marvelous as well: the smooth and attentive Brian; Sally a former British TV star; Americans Carol and David; “dragon lady” Sian and her philandering Aussie husband Ted; the witty, seemingly never aging octogenarian Zoe; compliant Faith and her pushy son Alfie who insists she needs a mansion rather than the small flat she’d prefer; and gay couple Benjamin and William.