Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure by Rhys Bowen is a charmingly optimistic story of a woman who, when faced with a surprise divorce from her husband, sets off on a new life in the south of France (where her Bentley lands!). Faced with the impending war, Ellie perseveres and forges new relationships, and discovers that there is so much more to herself and her life than she'd ever imagined. I very much enjoyed this story!

3.5 Stars

This story starts in 1938 in England. Ellie Endicott is shocked when her husband of more than 30 years asks for a divorce. Ellie decides to take her husband's prized Bentley, her housekeeper, Mavis, and her friend Doris, and head to the south of France. On the way, the car breaks down in a small fishing village. In the fishing village of Saint-Benet, they start to restore the villa they're staying in and, at the same time, their own lives. Ellie begins to find her independence and makes some new friends along the way. The trio becomes part of the community. Unfortunately, their new, quiet lives are threatened by WWII.

If I had to describe this book's characters in two words, I would use "warm" and "optimistic." They're quite charming, and I couldn't help but cheer them on. I loved seeing Ellie come into her own and become confident. The plot was a tad predictable, and the challenges the characters faced were easily fought, but I loved the overall message of friendship and hope. Historical fiction fans who enjoy stories of female friendship and resilience will appreciate this little escape to pre-war France. It is a quiet reminder that you're never too old and it is never too late for a splendid adventure.

This was a pleasant, easy read with a comforting tone and an empowering message of second chances. I really liked the idea of Ellie reclaiming her life after betrayal and setting off on a spontaneous journey with two equally delightful companions. The South of France setting was lovely and perfect for the story’s slower pace.

That said, while I enjoyed the premise, the plot didn’t fully grip me, and I found myself wishing for a bit more depth or emotional intensity. Still, it’s a cozy, heartwarming book, it is perfect if you’re looking for something light with a dash of historical charm.

Mrs Endicott's Splendid Adventure is an interesting take on WWII. Very enjoyable day's read. Well researched.

This was the first book I’ve read by this author and while it wasn’t written poorly or anything like that, it isn’t what I was expecting. The pacing of the story was tough for me to get through. I felt that it wasn’t until the 70% mark that the story started to pick up. Then I felt like the whole war was completely rushed through. I am not sure if this was meant to be a proper WWII book, or what. I liked the characters and I was glad that Ellie & Jojo got happy endings, but this one wasn’t my cup of tea..

Mrs. Endicott is blindsided with some news from her husband. Making the best of a situation, she decides to take a holiday and figure out what she wants to do next with her life. Thankfully she doesn't have to do this alone, and she sets off with some unlikely fellow travelers. Mrs. Endicott and her companions discover much about themselves, as well as each other, as they happily settle in a small village. And then WWII comes along, bringing hardship, loss, and love. This was a beautiful read, and I could picture the scenery as the author described it. Thanks to Netgalley and the publish for allowing me to give my opinion about this book.

This is a fun and yet serious read.
The reality that so many women are reduced to slaves to their husbands is sickening.
Mrs. Endicott, a proper English wife is facing a divorce at the age of 50. She doesn’t know who she is, having lost her identity decades ago.
Taking wild chances leads to a long line of adventures, forming new friendships, and surviving WWII.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

I am a long time fan of Rhys Bowen. I was very excited to receive an ARC of this book from Net Galley. The story is set just before WWII in Surrey, England. Ellie Endicott’s life is turned upside down when her husband of 30 years informs her that he wants a divorce and intends on marrying a much younger woman. He tells Ellie that she may reside in his former ‘love nest’, a flat in London, and that he will pay her a settlement. After a series of decisions and conversations with her housekeeper, Mavis and an ailing elderly friend, Dora from town, the three ladies abscond with Gerald Endicott’s beloved Bentley, and head toward the South of France. Despite warnings of certain war, the ladies make their way across France, acquire a young pregnant French girl and end up in the small fishing village of Saint Benetton when the Bentley breaks down. They decide to stay. This is the story of great friendship, love list and found, resilience, heartbreak and survival all taking place during WWII. It is an engaging story, and a different twist to the popular WWII books set primarily in England or Paris. There are many townspeople with stories that tie them all together in the face of war.

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and Net Galley for the chance to read and review this book. All opinions are my own.
Rhys Bowen is one of my favorite authors! I love her writing style and the way she takes the reader into a story from beginning to end. This story starts in Surrey, England. Ellie Endicott's husband has asked her for a divorce and basically kicked her out of the house. She decides to go on a journey to the South of France. She ends up taking her friends Mavis and Dora with her. When they are stranded along the way with car trouble, it is a blessing in disguise. They are stranded in the fishing village of Saint Benet. Many changes come into their life as they settle into this village. I really enjoyed this book. It was fun to read about the friendship that grew between these women, and how much they helped each other. I highly recommend this book!

I might as well write at the very beginning that I really enjoyed reading Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure. This Rhys Bowen novel is a delight. There is humor, happiness, love, loss, grief, tragedy, and humanity, all of which finds its way into this story. Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure explores what happens when three women decide that they are ready for a change, for an adventure, and for a new start in life. Ellie, Dora, and Mavis learn about adaptability and change and about the need not to give up.

The plot of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure flows so very well, with characters who are likable and whom readers will love. The novel begins in 1938 Surrey, England, and soon moves to a small fishing village on the southern French coast. Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure is a wonderful story, full of lovely moments in a small village with terrific people to get to know.

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC. I am offering an enthusiastic yes! Please do read this lovely novel. I think readers will find Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure a delightful read.

5 stars

I've been a fan of Rhys Bowen's books for many years. Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure did not disappoint. It was well written and intriguing. I couldn't put it down. I wanted to see how Ellie’s story ended. Bowen's descriptions of the fishing hamlet of Saint Benet were beautiful. The characters are fully developed. I liked them, except for Yvette (of course). Ellie is a strong character, and I am glad she didn't let her unfaithful cad of a husband ruin her life and hold her down. I highly recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a chance to review this book.

diary was blanked for this book. because wow. take me to this book over and over again please. i felt bad for loving it so much with what suddenly came over the horizon with the war. but i did. i did love it so very much.
Ryhs has a deft hand with making words seem beautiful to read. putting together this book and then sending it out to us like a gift, because thats what books like this feels like, a gift.
i would also like to say can someone please invite me into the world of Mrs Endicott and make her adopt me as her best friend. shes just fabulous. infact all the characters are fabulous to read and i was totally immersed in this book.
dont get me wrong with this book there are obvious darker,deeper moments and im sure you can guess lots of those with the time period. but the way Rhys writes it makes you somehow feel comforted by her writing of it.
this book starts with Mrs Endicott literally having divorce sprung on her. shes devoted her whole adult life to her husband and child so it completely knocks her. she feels lost,bless her. but what she knows is she is taking the Bentley and this is exactly what she does and along the way picks up two to go with her and so our adventure begins. it takes us to France and aren't we just loving this book more and more because we've headed to a gorgeous little village and i immediately want to be there too! but then they run in to car trouble. but maybe it fate because the woman find something in this little village. there is a peace that comes down upon them all , perhaps a place to belong. that is sadly, very sadly until the time of war is upon them and that means so is the Nazis. and this will bring a whole new test to Ellie's door. can Mrs Endicott and her new little found family fight the darkest enemy anyone has ever met?
this is a book id like to have on my book shelf for forever more. its a book ill cherish.

In 1938 England, Mrs. Endicott's husband suddenly asks for a divorce. Mrs. Endicott is completely blindsided by the request, and for a moment is uncertain what to do. She's only been a wife and mother, and living in a small English town as a woman of a certain age with a banker husband has established her in a predictable way of life. She hasn't been happy, necessarily, but it has been comfortable.

Her splendid adventure begins almost immediately. She stands up to her husband, startling both of them. She also decides to go to the south of France, the last place she remembers being happy when she visited there years ago. At first she plans to go alone, but she impulsively invites others along--her crotchety and bossy neighbor, her cleaning woman . . . the three of them escape their lives and head to France.

For a while they live an idyllic life in the south of France, but as time passes and Hitler becomes more and more powerful, the outside world begins to affect their small town, and soon they can't escape the war that is raging across Europe.

Rhys Bowen does an excellent job of establishing the dull drab life Mrs. Endicott is leading, then showing the beauty and friendship and romance she discovers before the horrors of WWII threaten to destroy what she has built for herself and her friends.

The historical data seems accurate to me (admittedly no expert), and the reader is totally immersed in the time period and the world created. The timespan of the novel covers birth, death, betrayal, love, friendship, war, peace--Mrs. Endicott's splendid adventure is the adventure of life itself.

I loved it! It was a wonderful tale of hope and grit. It was a wonderful tale of goodness and kindness to our fellow man. It was a wonderful tale of stepping into the unknown, of cherishing life, of trying new things.

Yes after a good beginning, the middle part got a bit bogged down, but the last third was GREAT!

Good characters, good story, good ending. Highly recommended.

I received this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This is THE book I needed to read! It was an enjoyable dream to read, as if a fairy tale. We all want happy endings, but they are not easily achieved.

Middle-aged Ellie Endicott unexpectedly becomes a divorcee and is determined to rethink her approach to happiness and life. Along the way she collects lost souls and takes them with her, overcoming obstacles along the way. In her healing process, she discovers friendships, happiness and her inner resilience.

Rhys Bowen always creates interesting characters and Ellie Endicott is definitely one of her best! Ellie believes in second chances, is accepting of others, independent, daring and courageous. Ellie is the woman we aspire to be.

Ellie is now one of my favorite characters and will definitely stay with me. Thank you Rhys!

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for the complimentary eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

An absolutely wonderful story and great premise for a scintillating story. Mrs Endicott's amazing adventure was so beautifully written and the characters were great. I was hooked from beginning to the end, Well worth a read.

3 1/2 stars; it started off light, but turned into something deeper addressing more of the history of the time, which was a nice surprise. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

“Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure” is a historical fiction (WWII) book, based in France, by Rhys Bowen. This book began with a wow - In 1938 UK, Ellie Endicott’s husband announces that he wants a divorce. Ellie decides to relive a holiday she had in France. She takes along with her two village women - the spinster of the town (Dora) and Ms. Endicott’s house cleaner - who will accompany the two women not as a servant, but as a companion. This story covers from about a ten or so year span - the beginning of the war in France to after liberation. After the dramatic beginning, I had high hopes for this book - but in so many ways, reading this book I knew that things were all going to turn out okay for the women - solution were easily found and even when something bad did happen, there didn’t seem to be a lot of depth which I found a bit lacking. One of the reasons I like reading WWII historical fiction is because I want to learn something new - and I didn’t learn anything new from this book, other than sometimes feeling like I was armchair traveling in pre-WWII France on the way to the small town. This was an okay book, but I think with some more character depth (and possibly removing one of the characters because she didn’t add much to the story) and some tension, I would’ve preferred this book from a historical fiction slant.

Ellie has been married for thirty years when her husband announces he wants a divorce. Initially, she wonders what to do, but then she seeks advice and leaves the marriage with a nice settlement. She has no intention of staying around with all the looks of sympathy. She is going to the south of France for a vacation … maybe longer. She doesn’t make it to her destination because her car breaks down, and she decides to stay in the small fishing village. With a war looming over the country, what can Ellie expect of her time in Saint Benet?

Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure is a stand-alone historical fiction story that includes World War II at its edges but is not about the war. Once again, Bowen has crafted a wonderful story of loss and new beginnings and included vibrant characters and rich historical details. I am glad that WWII was just a small part of the story because I wanted to lose myself in the story of a woman remaking her life.

I was familiar with the author, Rhys Bowen, as one of the crime fiction writers that comprise the Jungle Red Writers (www.jungleredwriters.com), but had never read one of her books. When I found out about Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure, I knew I had to read it, and indeed, it was a most splendid adventure for me, too!

Ellie Endicott is a dutiful middle-aged wife living with her banker husband, Lionel, in Surrey pre-WWII. One day, Lionel tells her that after 30+ years of marriage he wants a divorce, and wants her to leave so he can install his much younger mistress. Ellie considers fighting the divorce, but in those days, the men held all the power. She arranges for an acceptable settlement, and takes a trip to the French Rivera, where she had once traveled as a young girl. Although planning to travel alone, she ends up inviting her housekeeper, Mavis (who lives with her abusive husband), and Dora, an elderly and very crotchety neighbor who longs to have one last big adventure. They load up Lionel’s Bentley (unbeknownst to him), and take off.

When they are close to Marseilles, the car breaks down, and they find themselves “stuck” in the small village of Saint Benet. We should all be so lucky to be “stuck” there! While waiting for the car to be repaired, they take rooms in a pension run by an English couple, and, thanks to Ellie’s fluency in French, begin to make friends with the townspeople. I not only could picture these folk, but came to care about them: including Louis, who was repairing the car and could fix just about anything, Henri, the bar owner and former chef, Nico, the fisherman, Bruno, the lovely young man who helped tend the gardens, Clive and Mr Tommy (who, although not entirely accepted by the townspeople, found a place where they could live their lives together), Abbot Gerard, head of a nearby monastery, and the spoiled Viscount who literally and figuratively looked down on the residents from his chateau on a hill.

Ellie ends up renting a villa, and the three women settle in, all hoping to live their lives to the fullest. It seems idyllic until WWII approaches, and eventually German troops come to the village. There are dark chapters that bring up the atrocities and hatred of Jews, LGBTQ, and anyone not “pure,” but Ellie proves herself to be anything but docile. I loved seeing her bloom into such a strong, compassionate woman.
The dialogue, well-drawn three-dimensional characters, the setting, the joys and the sorrows, all drew me in and kept me intrigued until the end. I’ll be reading more from Ms. Bowen. Thank you, NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing, for providing the opportunity to read this absolutely wonderful ARC. I’m happy to provide this honest review.