A spell in Provence

                                                                                 

With few roots in England and having just lost her job, Amy Carter decides to give up on home and start a new life in France, spending her redundancy package turning an overgrown Provençal farmhouse, Bellefontaine, into a successful hotel.

Though she has big plans for her new home, none of them involves falling in love – least of all with Fabien Coste, the handsome but arrogant owner of a nearby château.  As romance blossoms, eerie and strange happenings in Bellefontaine hint at a dark mystery of the Provençal countryside which dates back many centuries and holds an entanglement between the ladies of Bellefontaine and the ducs de Coste at its centre. As Amy works to unravel the mystery, she begins to wonder if it may not just be her heart at risk, but her life too.  

See more at:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spell-Provence-Marie-Laval-ebook/dp/B00RVQO8RM/ref=sr_1_9?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1420915312&sr=1-9&keywords=accent+press

http://www.accentpress.co.uk/Book/13421/A-Spell-in-Provence.html#sthash.X8MLryS5.dpuf

About the author

Originally from Lyon in France, Marie studied History and Law at university there before moving to Lancashire in England where she worked in a variety of jobs, from PA in a busy university department to teacher of French in schools and colleges. Writing, however, was always her passion, and she spends what little free time she has dreaming and making up stories. Her historical romances ANGEL HEART and THE LION'S EMBRACE are published by MuseItUp Publishing. A SPELL IN PROVENCE is her first contemporary romance. It is published by Áccent Press. 

My Review

I’m pretty sure Marie Laval must have had me in mind as her target reader when she wrote this book. It has everything I love about a good story, firstly it’s set in Provence so what’s not to love? You can almost smell the lavender as you turn the pages. Then there’s a handsome French hero by the name of Fabien and I can totally understand how he makes Amy feel when he calls her Aimee in his sexy French accent. Apart from that there is a centuries old mystery, strange things happening and mysterious stories of rape and murder all connected to the house Amy is trying to run as a hotel. This is story telling at its best. It didn’t matter that there were enough clues to work out pretty much who was responsible from the start, the beauty was in the narrative, the way the story flowed and watching the characters as they tried to work it out for themselves. There were a couple of surprises though which neatly tied it all together. Fantastic story of romance, suspense and magic amid sleepy Provencal villages.

5/5