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A Year of the Good Life (The Good Life France)
by Janine Marsh
A little more than 10 years ago, Janine Marsh and her husband Mark gave up their city jobs in London to chase the good life in the countryside of northern France.
Having overcome the obstacles of starting to renovate her dream home—an ancient, dilapidated barn—and fitting in with the peculiarities of her new neighbors, Janine is now the go-to expat in the area for those seeking to get to grips with a very different way of life. In the Seven Valleys, each season brings new challenges as well as new delights. Freezing weather in February threaten the lives of some of the four-legged locals; snow in March results in a broken arm, which in turn leads to an etiquette lesson at the local hospital; and a dramatic hailstorm in July destroys cars and houses, ultimately bringing the villagers closer together. With warmth and humor, Janine showcases a uniquely French outlook as two eternally ambitious expats drag a neglected farmhouse to life and stumble across the hidden gems of this very special part of the world.
"Warm, uplifting, and effervescent ... Janine's voice and humor bubble right off the page, making you want to pack your bags and visit her fixer-upper home in rural France." —Samantha Verant, author, Seven Letters from Paris
"If you've ever dreamed of discovering 'the real France', you won't want to miss this delightful book." —Keith Van Sickle, author, One Sip at a Time: Learning to Live in Provence
This information about My Four Seasons in France was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
I'm a British writer living in the middle of nowhere rural France, with 72 animals and a husband.
It wasn't always this way! On a freezing cold day in February 2004 something happened to me that changed my life. On a booze cruise to Calais, I fell in love with a run down old barn about an hour's drive inland – and I bought it for less than the price of a very posh handbag. Eventually I moved there (it's a long story of love, loss and taking a risk). I gave up my office job and became a writer.
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