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Seven Letters From Paris

 

In full compliance with FTC Guidelines, I received this book for free in exchange for a fair and honest review. I was in no way compensated for this post as a reviewer, and the thoughts are my own.

Seven Letters From Paris By Samantha Vérant Publisher:  Sourcebooks Pub. Date: October 7, 2014 ISBN:  978-1402297229 Pages:  288 Genre:  memoir / nonfiction Source: Received from the publisher for a virtual book tour on France Book ToursGoodreads Buy the book:  Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Indiebound  | Book Depositery  |  Powells  |  BAM

This book counts for the following Reading Challenges:

        

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

Things are really not going well for Samantha: after almost 10 years of quasi estrangement with her husband, she is faced with a major credit card debt, the impossibility to find a job aside dog walker, plus health issues to top it all. Talking with her good friend Tracey, she reminisces the close-to-paradise time they both spent in France in Summer 1989, and especially their encounter with two young Frenchmen…
Jean-Luc had sent her 7 love letters, but bearing the stigma of her own dad abandoning her and her mother, she had been afraid to get too close, and had never answered. Twenty years later, maybe time had finally come to try to find him, to apologize and maybe try to reconnect? I loved the memoir Seven Letters From Paris!

Yes, I really loved the way Sam hoped against all hope when life seemed at the toughest, and how she dared open her wounded heart again.

  This is the story of how I rebooted my life and restarted my heart.
p. xi

Her memoir is beautifully written, with the seven letters Jean-Luc sent her interspersed throughout the book.

There is a very nice suspense and alternation between her memories of that idyllic Summer of twenty years before, and the tension of the present day: all her problems, plus the fear of the unknown. Indeed, when you have not connected with someone in twenty years, anything can happen when you finally meet again. Is Samantha still a dreamer, a teenager, or is something really possible for them again?
Plus, even if things seem to be possible for them, how about diving fully into a different culture, a different language, different food and customs, not even mentioning the nightmarish paperwork attached to the omnipresent French bureaucracy!

There were also of course awesome passages on France, on its architecture (Chartres, la vallée de la Loire) and its food! Though I certainly do NOT share Sam’s distaste for wild boar, and would love indeed to be able to eat some here in the US. I fondly remember when hunters of my little village would all hunt for it together and bring some that several families would share, and how my parents cooked it!

Samantha had so much going against her and her heart, it’s really very inspiring to see how hard she fought, what friends and relatives she had around her to help, and how things eventually turned out for her.

VERDICT: Seven Letters From Paris is a lively and very inspiring memoir witnessing to the fact that sometimes, life has better things in store for you than the best of fiction could make you dream of. French food and culture will also help! Perfect for all lovers of France and readers who need to be reminded that the sun always shines behind the clouds, how dark they may be.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK YET?
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