This was a quick read with a nice love story. I liked the descriptions of France, and it made me want to sit at an outdoor cafe eating french food and sipping coffee. Overall though, this book wasn't for me. I didn't feel invested in the characters, and I thought there were too many storylines going on. I would have liked if the book was just about Merry and Noah and their love story (without the Angela, Leo, finding his father, "murder" sub plots).

French Holiday is the new book by Sarah Ready. This was my first experience reading Ready's writing and I really enjoyed it!

Merry has spent most of her adult life pining for her best friend, Leo. Unfortunately, Leo is engaged to Merry's sister. At the wedding weekend, Merry wakes up the next morning in bed with Leo's best man, Noah and not a whole lot of memory regarding what happened. Merry flees to France and the opportunity to stay in a castle and figure out her life for three months. When she arrives, the castle and company were not what she was expecting. Noah is a documentarian and will also be staying at the castle. They must learn to coexist for the three months and then go their separate ways forever.

This book was so fun! I could relate with Merry's character. She's a people pleaser. It's easier for her to give into her sister than make a fuss. Her and Noah's relationship was so refreshing. I liked their honest banter and how they became friends first. The writing had the perfect amount of comedy and romance. The scenes with the lobster were so slapstick yet funny I found myself laughing out loud. I didn't really need a couple of tidbits at the end but it didn't take away from the overall enjoyability. The secondary characters also had depth and a redeeming arc by the end of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Sarah Ready, and Swift & Lewis Publishing LLC, for this eARC. All opinions expressed are my own.

I enjoyed this book, more to it than an enemies to friends chick lit story, Merry and Noah are great characters and the storyline is good. Excellent choice to pack in your holiday suitcase this summer!

Thank you Netgalley and the publishing house for sending and allowing me to read this novel. I absolutely loved this, its the type of book I'm looking for when I want to read romance. The cover is so pretty its what drawled me in. I really really recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley & Swift & Lewis Publishing for the ARC!

Full disclosure: almost stopped reading this one a few chapters in. I wasn’t sure I could do a pining-after-my-sisters-new-husband-woe-is-me type of a book. Still don’t think I could. Which is fine because this was NOT that.

Once Merry set foot in France, I. Was. Hooked. From the Chateau to Noah to the artists and missing mother and ghost and allergy and Camille and Pierre…it read like a lovable rom com. And one I would love to watch.

This book opens with Merry at the wedding of her sister Angela and Leo, the secret, unrequited, love of her life. She’s kept her devastation quiet, but Leo’s best man, and her nemesis, Noah sure noticed and called her out on it.
What follows is the worst work week of her life, and leads her to quit. To top it off the happy couple announce their pregnancy by asking her to be godmother
All this and she hits a wall, calls her own godmother for advice. Jupiter offers up temporary use of her own ‘flight plan’, a castle she owns in France. Of course she fails to mention that she had already rented out the place to Noah, so he could write and research for his travel show. After fruitless arguing, they agree to share the mostly unfurnished and surprising dilapidated chateau.

It’s a castle but it’s been basically abandoned to the creepy crawlers and disrepair for who knows how long. No electricity, little water, and a single bed that’s seen better days. In reality all this would be horrifying, but as fiction? Kind of a riot.

On the less funny side, Merry’s family is quite awful. I kept trying to give her sister the benefit of the doubt, that she’s just oblivious, but she was continuously infuriating. I mentally subtitled this book ‘unrequited love and the audacity of some people’

There’s also a very emotional subplot, about searching for love from family, that really hit me in the feelings.

“Perhaps, I can have magic too….” Anyone who has ever daydreamed about escaping their everyday life and moving to a chateau/ castle/ cottage anywhere else, French Holiday by Sarah Ready is the book for you. Romance readers- this book, while light on spice, this book has the perfect enemies-to-lovers and forced proximity tropes. Personally, I’m here for any type of “one bed” storyline. Main character Merry finds herself at the precipice of a quarter-life crisis, and is saved by her literal (fairy) godmother, who offers for her to spend three months at her (unknowingly decrepit) French chateau. Upon arrival, Merry discovers she won’t be spending the time alone, and the cutest love story emerges. There’s a lot of French countryside and wine, a little Brie and some baguettes, and please, please pay attention to the cameo by Louis, because I honestly laughed so hard. This book was adorable and so fun to read. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go read everything Sarah Ready has ever written.

I’m so grateful to Net Galley and W.W. Crown for providing this advanced reviewer copy in exchange for my honest opinion and review!

Yes, yes and more yes. This is like a naughtier version of a Hallmark movie. We have enemies to love, scorn lovers [kind of], a falling apart French castle with only one bed.... do you see where I am going here?

Delightful, just delightful. This is my first book by Sarah Ready and I am Ready for more!

3.25/5 stars! Enemies-to-lovers is one of my favorite tropes, so I was really excited to read this book. It wasn't a bad book. It was an average contemporary romance. I enjoyed Noah a lot but struggled with Merry. She really doesn't seem to know herself yet. I think this should have gone a more "Eat, Pray, Love" way and let Merry become happy single and living her best life. Instead, she jumped from one long-love to Noah. It was cute and I enjoyed it. Just wasn't the best FMC.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review

Read if you like:
⚔️ Enemies to Lovers
✈️ Vacation/ Travel
🇫🇷 French Countrysides
💔 Unrequited Love
🛌 One Bed Trope
🏡 Forced Proximity
🔍 Little Bit of Mystery

Sarah Ready is quickly becoming a guilty pleasure author for me and I get excited any time I see a new book coming out by her, and just as the others this one did not disappoint!

I truly enjoy her writing style and how she puts together her romances. This one was so enjoyable with the romance in the French countryside with a slight mystery.

I also loved that this was prolonged forced proximity over 3 months where they moved from enemies to lovers with the help of the one the one bed trope.

I highly recommend romance lovers check this one out! Thank you for my ARC copy in exchange for my honest review!

Rating 4.5

I picked this story up off the 'Read Now' section of Net Galley as an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) and I'm so happy I did because this story was the absolute most perfect pool side read while I was on vacation. Honestly, I picked this story because of the cover and wasn't disappointed. This is a sweet romance but also read like a coming of age for the Main Character.

Merry DeLuca's life is changing quickly - her sister (who's the kind of little sister who gets everything she wants) is marrying her best friend (and Merry is hopelessly in love with him). After a blacked-out night at the wedding with the best man, Noah, and a conversation with her godmother (Jupiter), Merry launches into her escape plan - to take some time for herself and reset. It just so happens that Jupiter has a French Castle that she owns (as her own escape plan) and offers it up to Merry for 3 months and to let her find her own French dream (a French man that she can fall in love with... or at least keep her occupied while she's there!)

But France isn't everything that Merry was expecting; The castle has it's own set of issues (it's falling apart at every moment) and it comes with company (Noah is actually there as well...Flaky Jupiter "forgot" she rented it to him too). While acknowledging the awkward-ness, Noah and Merry commit to making this vacation work for both of them and to get through their time together but add in the fact that Noah is famous, arts are important in France, friendly neighbors, and a dark past and these two end up facing more than just "making it work" and quickly learn they need each other.

Merry was such a wonderful character to read about - I loved her personality and how Ready was able to make her shine through the pages. The additional characters were a little harder to connect with and actually annoyed me to an extent, but it made me love Merry and Noah that much more. I also enjoyed the pace of the story and loved how it was more than a romance story. Merry comes out of this story a stronger woman and Noah gets to do some personal healing - the growth of these characters made the Romance seem like it wasn't the only story line. This read would be perfect for someone wanting to transport themselves, enjoy some romance and fall in love with relatable characters!

Thanks to NetGalley who, in collaboration with Swift & Lewis Publishing LLC, released this copy with a Read Now options so that many of us get to read this early copy of the story!

The book' felt like I was the one going on holiday and I had a good time reading it. The male and female lead were so fun!
One of my dream trips is going to France and this book was fun to read! I enjoyed reading it! It was fun and full of banter!

I wanted to like this, the cute cover and title had me thinking I would howeverrrrr. This one fell flat. I was bored for the majority of it and found the characters very immature.

Tropes: Forced Proximity, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Unrequited Lover, Found Family, Vacation Romance, One Bed

This was such a fun book. I laughed out loud multiple times and then cried others. The main characters have a past. Merry thinks that Noah hates her, and Noah knows that Merry will never be his, or that's what he thinks. Noah is on a quest to find his unrequited love, but it isn't what you think. Merry needs a break from life.
When Jupiter gives both of them the opportunity to stay at her French Chateau,- unbeknownst to them-everything falls into place.
So many parts of this book made me laugh- the rat and the lobster were by far the best.
I love the one-bed trope and this was done a little differently than normal which I appreciated. I did enjoy the side characters for the most part I didn't really like the sister...
It wasn't overly spicy but it didn't need to be. It was sweet when it needed to be there was a little steam in the perfect places.
Overall a cute rom-com and I am glad I ran across it on Netgalley!

French Holiday is a rom-com kind of book. It's super fun, easy read, with a lovable main character, Merry, and a hot love interest, Noah. Most of the story is set in the French countryside, in a chateau. I was super excited to start reading it, especially after reading the synopsis but when I finished it, I was glad it has ended.
At the beginning we follow Merry’s sister’s wedding with her best friend, who she’s had a crush on for the past four years. Merry’s sister’s always got what she wanted and now she also got the guy Merry was in love with. And it was extremely easy, because they got engaged after a less than a day of knowing each other. Love at first sight, they called it, they just knew this was it, they said. And even though Merry was not the merriest about the situation, she was happy for her sister. After the wedding, Merry flied to France for a vacation at her godmother’s chateau, but the plot twist—Noah, who was also the best man at Merry’s sister’s wedding, a famous travel documentarian and her enemy, has also rented the chateau. They made a deal to live together and not bother each other, since they were there for two different reasons—Noah to write his new book and to find someone, Merry to get swept off her feet by a beautiful French man, preferably named Pierre. And a beautiful French man, named Pierre, entered the chateau. While Merry was trying to date Pierre, she gets to know Noah at the same time and started to fall in love with him.
But here comes another plot twist. Her sister called and told Merry that Noah is a murderer. But as it turned out, he of course wasn’t, and it was all a big misunderstanding. Only a few chapters later, Pierre accused Noah of committing a crime and that he should be in jail, but that turned out to be false too.
And the person Noah was searching for? It was an artist, who was supposed to be his father. But when he tells Pierre that information, he tells Noah, that he’s got it wrong, the artist is actually Pierre’s father. But when they visit him, it turns out, Noah was right all along.
At the end I was willing to give this book three stars, because it was funny and cute, but Noah proposed to Merry after approximately 3 days of “dating”. That’s where I drew the line.
An honorable mention of Louis, the lobster. It was funny to read about him jumping out of the pot with boiling water and then the struggle of catching him, but keeping him as a pet? I think this decision should be reconsidered.
After all, if you don’t mind the many plot twists and quick engagement, you should read it at the beach on your next vacation, or even in the French countryside.

I wasn't sure I would like it - as the cover made me think it was a bit lighter than it was. Don't get me wrong, it was no heavy tome, but the characters had more depth than I thought they would. It kept me up way past my bedtime, which is a sign of a good book.

Thanks NetGalley for the advanced reader copy!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book was such a fun read, but it definitely had an identity crisis about half way through. What started out as a super cute "quitting life to move to France to get over a man," lighthearted and breezy, took a turn around the romantic climax wherein the playful comparisons to gothic novels suddenly became a lot more real. It wasn't bad, per se, but felt a little off in tone. I did still enjoy the mystery element quite a bit, and when everything finally resolved, it was less dramatic (in a good way) and felt more in line with the first half of the book. And the ending is about as cliche as could be, but I didn't mind so much.

This book really shines in the characterization of the two main leads and the beautiful descriptions of Annecy + the dilapidated chateau. Everything else was a bit lacking in my opinion. The side characters were fun, but they felt 2-dimensional and like they were only there to further the plot; no real friendship vibes, unfortunately. And as I said above, the dramatic plot twist felt gimmicky, like it was trying to fit a retelling rather than being an organic shock; you don't ask someone to be in your wedding party and then suddenly drop a bomb like that just for the plot's sake. It felt so inauthentic.

Overall, I did find this an enjoyable reading experience despite its flaws, so solid 3.75 stars. I'd definitely recommend as a beach/plane read for those who enjoy getaway romances and a hint of mystery.

This was a really sweet story. Mary has unrequited love for her best friend Leo. She is dismayed when he meets her sister Angela and they get engaged the very next day, She is thrown together with the best man Noah who she thinks despises her. They both get drunk and end up in his room where she wakes up in bed next to Noah naked. She is mortified and flees the next morning. Her life spirals from there and she finds herself taking a holiday and goes to her aunt's chateau in France. There she comes face to face with Noah who is there to gain inspiration for his next documentary. There in the run down chateau they are forced to face their feelings and learn some hard lessons about love and life. This was a very cute story and I enjoyed going on a French Holiday with them and the narration.

French Holiday is a perfect lighthearted beach read for the summer! There are elements of seriousness that keep the book grounded. Merry, suffering from unrequited love, is quite relatable... we've all been there at some point, right? Of course Merry has one up on most of us... she gets to escape to a French chateau when life gets too overwhelming.
The dynamic relationship between Merry and Noah is great to follow as the story progresses. There's snark, drama, resignation, and perhaps a change of heart. Overall, a funny, cute, and surprising read!

Super cute and quick romcom book! Frenemy to lovers trope. Some secondary storylines took away from the main story but not enough for me to give up the story. Overall it was a fun read.