If you’ve seen The Holiday with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet (my most favourite movie ever btw), then you’ll be familiar with what a house swap entails. It does exactly what it says on the tin - two people swap houses - anywhere in the world - for an agreed amount of time. This is exactly what The Riviera House Swap is.
I read most of this in one day, when it was pouring with rain outside, on the east coast of England, when it’s supposed to be summer. Gillian whisked me away to the south of France and even though it was November there, I still imagined glorious summer days, eating buttery croissants and drinking rich sweet coffee in pavement cafes.
The Riviera House Swap is set across two timelines, the present day and brief interludes when our protagonist, Nina, is seventeen and on a French exchange with her school. Nina is currently fed-up and forty and starts to wonder just what might have been.....
No spoilers here, but I really, really would like to know what happens to Nina next. Any chance of a sequel, Gillian?
Thank you to NetGalley, Boldwood Books and Rachel’s Random Resources for the opportunity to read and review The Riviera House Swap by Gillian Harvey.
About the Book
Would you swap houses with a stranger? Nina has always played it safe. But when her divorce papers come through on her fortieth birthday she decides enough is enough.
She’s always chosen the sensible route, staying in her stable job and marrying her rather boring ex. In fact – she realises – she’s chosen security over excitement for years. Ever since she refused to elope with her first beautiful, poetic, thoughtful Pierre, the man she met aged 17, on her French exchange. The only man who ever made her heart race.
Maybe it’s time to take a few risks?
Impulsively she goes online and finds another kind of French exchange… a house-swap. She can’t imagine what French businessman Jean-Luc wants with her terraced home in rural England, but she can’t wait to stay in his beautiful, spacious, bougainvillea-strewn villa on the French riviera.
She’s not just there for the house though. She’s decided to find the love she missed all those years ago. But will Pierre still be the man of her dreams after all this time?
As two lives collide, will love bloom on the French riviera? A gorgeously escapist story for fans of The Holiday, from the bestselling author of A Year at the French Farmhouse.
About Gillian
Gillian Harvey is a freelance journalist and the author of two well-reviewed women’s fiction novels published by Orion. She has lived in Limousin, France for the past twelve years, from where she derives the inspiration and settings for her books such as A Year at the French Farmhouse and A Month in Provence.
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