FRENCH HOLIDAY

In this mystery/romance, a woman whose longtime crush just married her sister escapes to her godmother’s crumbling castle in France only to encounter the snarky best man in residence.

New Yorker Merry DeLuca is dreading walking down the aisle. She is a bridesmaid at her sister Angela’s wedding but has been friends with the groom, Leo Fernandes, for years and is secretly in love with him. She was finally going to confess this to Leo when, alas, he met the more beautiful Angela. Further aggravating matters is Leo’s best man, Noah Wright, a famous travel documentarian. A pre-wedding meeting did not go well, with Merry spotting that the guarded, watchful Noah dumped her gift of wine in the trash. At the wedding, stressed-out Merry gets drunk and flirts with Noah, waking up the next day in a hotel room to find him sleeping beside her. She sneaks out and faces further challenges. A human resources mediator, she has to fire a lot of people, and then Angela announces that she’s pregnant. So Merry quits her job and follows her unconventional godmother Jupiter Mountlake’s advice that “you’re allowed to escape if your life is in a trash compactor.” Merry goes to stay at the French countryside chateau that Jupiter purchased. Unfortunately, the place is a dump, and worse, Jupiter rented the chateau to Noah. Amid missteps, Merry and Noah learn to open up to each other and uncover a painting by a renowned missing artist, providing new clues for Noah—the vanished artist turns out to be one of the underlying reasons for Noah’s travels.  

Ready has written a tale that deliciously taps into its French trappings. Merry enjoys pungent cheeses and the attentions of a handsome local art gallery owner called—but of course—Pierre. Yet this novel also includes psychological nuances that enrich what could have been simply a rather glossy and superficial story. Lead couple Merry and Noah are sketched out with childhood backstories that explain their wary natures. Even secondary characters Angela and Leo return for their own revealing twists, including one on the Lovers’ Bridge that figures prominently for several reasons in the tale. The mystery weaving through this romance gets overly convoluted at times (What took Noah so long to get to this chateau?). There are also a lot of rather fortuitous, just-in-time entrances by other characters who block Merry and Noah at critical moments. But overall, it’s hard to resist a story with a female hero who reprieves a lobster and realizes that Angela’s appropriation of what Merry first desires is a pattern (“I know that look. It’s the red bike look”). The novel’s final moments, which bring together the characters in an emotionally satisfying way, update the book’s opening scene. Merry and Noah would certainly make for engaging detectives unraveling mysteries in future installments. His roaming adventures could be aided by her mediator skills, which come in handy during a tense moment with Pierre in this tale. Indeed, Ready perhaps hints at this future with Merry’s final note: “Don’t forget to watch his latest episodes, where we travel to all the most romantic locations in the world—the Amalfi Coast is next.”

A charming dramedy featuring a promising sleuthing duo.