It’s such a pleasure today to be helping launch the blog tour and sharing my publication day review of Twenty-One Nights in Paris by Leonie Mack. Published today (6th October) by Boldwood Books, it’s now available as an e-book (free via Kindle Unlimited), a paperback, and as an audiobook too. Many thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for the tour invitation and the support, and to publishers Boldwood for my advance reading e-copy (provided via netgalley).
Leonie Mack is one of those excellent authors I’m so delighted to have discovered while taking part in Boldwood’s blog tours. I really loved her first, My Christmas Number One – a really different Christmassy read, with the most wonderful chemistry between the two main characters (you can read my review again here). I enjoyed her second book, Italy Ever After, every bit as much (you’ll find my review here) – and then came A Match Made in Venice (review here) and We’ll Always Have Venice (review here), with their beautifully drawn setting and a pair of superb romances. I’d be more than happy if all her books were set in Italy, but this time it’s Paris – and there’s always something rather special about the city of love at Christmas time, isn’t there? I was looking forward to this one…
An heiress to a fortune, Ren’s home-from-home is the Ritz, while the handsome and brooding Sacha has grown up in Paris’s less salubrious suburbs. So when an accident brings them together, romance seems an unlikely outcome.
When Ren’s society engagement reaches a very public end, Irena’s over-protective grandmother wants her home in London. Ren needs an excuse to stay in Paris, and so after some persuasion, Sacha agrees to pose as her new boyfriend. But only for the twenty-one days Ren’s grandmother has allowed her to nurse her broken heart before heading home to face the music.
Over the course of three weeks, Ren realises the world outside her exclusive bubble is more beautiful than she could have imagined. While Sacha reluctantly begins to see the goodness of the woman behind the wealth. When their time is up, will Ren want to return to her gilded cage, and will Sacha be able to let go of the woman he’s been ‘pretending’ to fall in love with…
There was so much I enjoyed about this lovely book – a really different exploration of Paris during the festive season, a romance I really believed in, the “fake boyfriend” trope I always so enjoy, and a very unusual fairy tale quality to the story’s telling.
Ren is very much the princess – she lives a life of privilege and luxury, but with an absence of any kind of privacy as the public face of the Asquith-Lewis corporation. She was on the verge of a marriage that would only increase the family’s wealth – the company is run by her austere grandmother, who has made her expectations clear and never shown her any warmth or affection – but her fiancé has moved on, and when the news of his new relationship breaks she needs to do whatever she can in the way of damage limitation.
But as she flees for home, her life collides with that of Sacha – literally, when her car knocks him off his bike – and she sees the possibility of escaping her high profile existence for a while. They agree to a fake romance – he really is the archetypal unsuitable boyfriend – that will allow her to spend some anonymous time in Paris until the time comes when she has to face the music. And as he introduces her to a side of Paris that she’s never seen before, he grows to see that there’s a lot more to her than the spoilt rich girl he first encountered – and she finds he’s far less unsuitable than she at first believed, as the loyalty and affection between them grows.
While Ren is at home amid the opulent surroundings of the Ritz – and frightened by the dark backstreets for reasons that later become clear – Sacha is at home in the city’s busy street markets, the way he makes his living a bit of a mystery for a while, the son of a Lebanese immigrant father, and with a perhaps slightly shady back-story of his own. The contrasts between their lifestyles are starkly drawn – but there’s a real warmth about the relationship that develops between them, as she steps into unknown territory and really blossoms, and he steps up very bravely to help her in the battle with her grandmother.
The Paris of this book is just wonderful – the author shows all the same attention to detail that distinguished her Italian settings, moving away from the usual tourist destinations and focusing on the vibrant street markets, viewing the more iconic attractions from a really different perspective. It’s all very Christmassy, and Ren discovers it all with an infectious sense of wonder and enchantment – although the story does have its moments of darkness and shadows of the past that prevent it ever becoming cloying.
I enjoyed both the main characters – Ren’s naivety and the warmth she allows to emerge, Sacha is totally loveable (and distinctly swoon-worthy) from the very start, and the chemistry between them is palpable. The romance that developed between them – unlikely as it seemed at first – was beautifully handled, and one I really believed in. But there’s also a well drawn supporting cast – the important people in Sacha’s life, the “family” relationships slowly made clearer, and that far more difficult relationship between Ren and her grandmother (and her horrendous assistant Ziggy).
Yes, I really enjoyed this one – perhaps not quite my new favourite (I’m perhaps too wedded to the author’s Italian settings), but an excellent story quite beautifully told, and a Christmas read with a real difference. Recommended by me!
About the author
Leonie Mack is the bestselling author of romantic novels including My Christmas Number One and Italy Ever After. Having lived in London for many years her home is now in Germany with her husband and three children. Leonie loves train travel, medieval towns, hiking and happy endings!
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