Two #Books about Women in Transition

Reviews by Susan Roberts

If you read my reviews, you know that I'm drawn to books about women who are making transitions in their lives. Today I have reviews of two books on this subject - one about a young woman who has to completely change her life when she loses the job that she loved and the second about an older woman who decides that she can no longer stay married and takes drastic steps to change her life.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. Free books were provided for an honest review.

Best Friend for Hire by Mary Carlomagno 

June 2017; Post Hill Press; 978-1682612606
ebook, print (256 pages); satire

This is a fun light read and a perfect book to read at the beach or pool. It's lighthearted and very funny in parts and is a feel -good book with a wonderful and well written main character.

As the novel begins, Jessie is mentally preparing herself for the promotion that she knows is coming. After 10 years of hard work at a major publishing company in NYC, she feels that she has earned this promotion. Imagine how surprised she is when she is called to her boss's office and given a pink slip. After the initial shock wears off, she knows that she needs to find work and decides to set up her own company and be a best friend for hire - help people arrange their closets, go shopping with them and do all of the things that a best friend would do. Believe me, Jessie gets herself into some very funny situations in her quest to be a best friend to several of the people who hire her. But despite the setbacks and the worry of her large NJ Italian family, she keeps trying. Her biggest job as a best friend for hire is when she promises someone that she can get THE BOSS (and in NJ that would be Bruce Springsteen) to attend a fund raiser.

This is a fun well-written book that will have you rooting for Jessie while you are laughing at some of the predicaments that she gets herself into.

I received an advance copy of this book from the Great Thought's Ninja Review Team. All opinions are my own

Buy Best Friend for Hire at Amazon

The Little French Bistro by Nina George

June 2017; Crown; 978-0451495587
ebook, audio, print (320 pages); women's fiction

Marianne has decided that her life is useless and she can't stay married to her husband another day. So while she and her husband are visiting Paris, she decided to drown herself in the Seine. Unfortunately (to her), she is saved and ends up in the hospital where her husband leaves her to figure out how to get home when while he returns to their home in Germany. She leaves the hospital without permission and finds a small town on the coast of France where she plans to kill herself. Life has a way of disrupting plans like this and just maybe the quirky cast of characters that she meets will make her change her mind...or maybe not.

This book started out with a great premise. Marianne's husband was so insufferable and unlikable and you could almost understand her plans to leave him - though suicide is a bit over the top. I thought that there were way too many characters in the small town that she escaped to and had a problem keeping them all figured out. Despite that, I loved the beginning and the end of this book and think that it's well worth reading just to see the changes in Marianne.

Thanks to First to Read for a copy of this book to read and review.

Buy The Little French Bistro at Amazon

Susan Roberts lives in North Carolina when she isn't traveling.  She and her husband enjoy traveling, gardening and spending time with their family and friends.  She reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction, and thrillers. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook.

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"A book for book lovers" ~ The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

“There are books that are suitable for a million people, others for only a hundred. There are even remedies—I mean books—that were written for one person only…A book is both medic and medicine at once. It makes a diagnosis as well as offering therapy. Putting the right novels to the appropriate ailments: that’s how I sell books.”

Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.

After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself.


Internationally bestselling and filled with warmth and adventure, The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people's lives.

For anyone with a love for words! ~ Farrah

Lovely work - worth reading again ~ Gillian Green

Funny, moving, uplifting ~ Cloggie Downunder

The Beginning....

How on earth could I have let them talk me into it?

The two generals of number 27 Rue Montagnard - Madame Bernard,
the owner, and Madame Roalette, the conceirge - had caught Monsiery in a pincer movement between their ground-floor flats.

"That Le P. has treated his wife shamelesly."

"Scandalously, Like a month treats a wedding veil."

"You can hardly blame some people when you look at their wives. Didges in Chanel. But men? Monsters, all of them."

"Ladies I don't quite know what..."

"Not your of course, Monsieur Perdu. You are cashmere compared with the normal yarn from which men are spun."

"Anyway, we're getting a new tenant. On the fourth floor. Yours, Monsieur."

"But Madame has nothing left. Absolutely nothing, only shattered illusion. She needs just about everything."

"And that's where you come in, Monsier. Give whatever you can. All donations welcome."

"Of course. Maybe a good book..."

"Actually, we were thinking of something more practical. A table, perhaps. You know, Madame has -"

"Nothing. I got that."

The bookseller could not imagine what might be more practical than a book, but he promised to give the new tenant a table. He still had one.

Buy The Little Paris Bookshop at Amazon

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