A French Wedding

by Hannah Tunnicliffe

Overview

For fans of The Vacationers and The Little Paris Bookshop: A delicious novel full of romantic entanglements, fiery outbursts, and a range of secrets, about six college friends reuniting on the coast of Brittany to celebrate one of their own's fortieth birthday.

"A delightful escape to the French seaside that I, for one, never wanted to leave."—Elin Hilderbrand, #1 New York Times bestselling author of 28 Summers

Max is a washed-up rock star who's about to turn forty and feeling nostalgic for his university days. All he says he wants for his birthday is to host his old friends at his house in the French countryside for a weekend of good food and reminiscing. But he has an ulterior motive: Finally ready to settle down, this is his chance to declare his undying love to his best friend, Helen.

Max's private chef, Juliette, has just returned to her hometown after a nasty breakup and her parents' failing health move her to sell her dream restaurant in Paris. Still reeling, Juliette throws herself into her job, hoping that the peace and quiet it offers will be the perfect cure for her broken heart.

But when Max's friends arrive, the introverted, dreamy Juliette finds herself drawn out of her orderly kitchen and into their tumultuous relationships. A weekend thinking about the past spurs more than one emotional crisis, as the friends take stock of whether they've lived up to their ideals. Together for the first time in years, it's not long before love triangles, abandoned dreams, and long-held resentments bubble over, culminating in a wedding none of them ever expected.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101974124
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/15/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	715,548
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

HANNAH TUNNICLIFFE is the author of two previous novels, The Color of Tea and Season of Salt and Honey. She is founder and co-author of the blog Fork and Fiction, which, unsurprisingly, explores her twin loves—books and food. She currently lives in New Zealand with her husband and three daughters.

Read an Excerpt

2017-02-05
Four women find themselves in a tangled family web that they work to unravel over a Provincetown summer in this new novel by Brenner (The Wedding Sisters, 2016, etc.).When Marin Bishop breaks off her perfect-seeming engagement to pursue a passionate affair with her boss at a Manhattan law firm, she believes it's the most dramatic thing that will happen to her as the summer begins. But when her firm finds out, she and her lover are summarily fired, right after she learns from her Philadelphia society parents that they're getting a divorce (something her mother, Blythe, is struggling to accept herself). In the wake of all this, Marin is thrown for an additional loop: while she's a daddy's girl at heart, she finds out that she's not her father's biological child. Indeed, she has a half sister neither she nor her mother knew about, a young Californian named Rachel who comes to New York to see Marin before continuing to Provincetown to meet her newly discovered grandmother Amelia. The biological father of both girls, Amelia's son, died many years ago. On a whim, Marin joins Rachel, and, out of desperation, Blythe tags along. They all find themselves at Amelia's beachfront guesthouse—closed for this summer but open to a new, blended family. As the summer unfolds, each of these women must process the information they've gained and the new people they've encountered, relearning how they fit in the world and what it means to be family. Soap-opera twists and turns are tempered with the believable goodness of the characters, the messiness of their journeys, and just a hint of unpredictability as events unfold. Not all the endings are happy, but most are. Engaging and not too fluffy, an excellent choice for summer vacation reading.

Editorial Reviews

"Tunnicliffe sets the proverbial table with plenty of plot twists and surprising character sketches"
—The New York Times Book Review
 
“The pages practically turn themselves in Tunnicliffe’s sparkling novel, brimming with festering secrets, abandoned dreams, love triangles, and lots of wine!”
—Emily Liebert, author of You Knew Me When and When We Fall

"A French Wedding is a delectable page turner with huge heart from an author who has proven herself to be an expert at creating endearing characters and compelling stories. Hannah Tunnicliffe writes with warmth and emotional depth about life in all its stages and love in all its forms. A bonus: she writes about food with true passion too, which makes this novel even easier to devour!"
—Marissa Stapley, Globe and Mail bestselling author of Mating for Life

"One of my favorite authors, Hannah Tunnicliffe transports you to Paris and the French countryside, where food, friends, romance, old longings, and new beginnings await an unforgettable cast of characters."
—Mia March, author of The Meryl Streep Movie Club

“Tunnicliffe delivers a solid story with a cinematic sweep that brings together an ensemble of complex, fully developed characters and a lovingly rendered setting, sure to please fans of romantic women’s fiction.”
—Booklist

From the Publisher