After playing safe for too long, a house swap is the answer

Synopsis

Would you swap houses with a stranger?

Nina has always played it safe. But when her divorce papers come through on her fortieth birthdayshe 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 love: 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?

My review

Nina is used on playing it safe: a safe job, a safe husband and a general safe life. So even when her marriage didn’t go as planned, and she was waiting for the divorce papers to come through, she would have never thought they would come in at exactly her fortieth birthday.

During her life, Nina always chose the safe side, even when she was seventeen. Because even back then, she didn’t elope with the young man she met during her French exchange.

being a free woman once again, and having decided to take more risks, Nina find in Jean – Luc the perfect candidate to do a house swap. And secretly she hopes that she will meet Pierre once again, and see if all those past ‘what – ifs’ can turn into something more real….

At the start of this book, I thought that I would get a story very much alike the Christmas movie ‘The Holiday’. Of course with different settings and the obvious different season.

But I quickly learned that the house swap is in fact the only thing the book and the movie have in common. And that this book takes a whole different direction, as it definitely more about Nina’s growth and mainly her self – discovery.

I have to say, that I understand why people don’t take that many risks in life. It’s always safer to play safe, avoiding any risk, disappointment and even heartbreak. Well, I am of course also one of those kind of people!

And Nina for sure is very alike at the beginning of the books. Even her best friends ‘mock’ her as she never does something out of the blue and prefers making lists with pros and cons.

But she is also very recognizable in the sense that at a young age, she fell deeply in love with Pierre and has never stop thinking what could have happened if she dared to make that risky choice back then.

So of course it makes perfect sense for her, after receiving her divorce papers, she wants to do something out of character and see if she can find back that one love, that one person that made her heart skip a beat.

I don’t know if I would be that kind of person to do a house swap, as I for sure am too wary and mistrusting 😊 but on the other hand, it also sounds so intriguing, to live in the house of someone else and how someone else is living his/her life.

And once again, with Nina finding Jean – Luc, in the place she lost her heart, it’s just a too good of an opportunity to let it pass.

It was sweet to see how once Nina arrived in France, she can rely on Jean – Luc’s brother and sister, even if the latter turns out to be a force to be reckoned with, yet also a woman with the kindest heart.

And both characters are a fundamental presence and reason for Nina making her growth in this book. They are also the reason that Nina is thinking about her past, present and future, and make her think about being more daring in life.

But I also have to admit, that Nina was a bit gullible at moments. While I could clearly see what was going on, Nina clearly didn’t. I found myself almost yelling at the poor woman to open her eyes and make her see what I was seeing.

Nevertheless, even that gullibility is a process that Nina has to go through, and get passed it.

As much as I thought that this would be a romance in meaning that woman finds her lost love and gets her happily ever after after many lost years, this wasn’t that kind of book. But that doesn’t take away that I enjoyed reading this book.

Because we see a woman finding the courage to stop making the safest choices, a woman going through the process of reevaluating her life. And it was even inspiring to see the changes that Nina goes through, even making choices that flabbergast her best friends, yet still gets the much needed encouragements from those same friends.

And we learn that it’s never too late, not even after your forties, to do something exciting and out of the blue. Because you will never know what will cross your path on one of those unexpected yet exhilarating adventures!