This is such an amusing story, not the content of course because after all infidelity is nothing to laugh about. However, whether you’ve been there or not, you won’t fail to be totally captivated by the antics of Catherine who is English, and Jacques who is French.
Jacques poor man, is a trojan, never complaining, enduring long hours travelling. He’s rising through the ranks in the toilet roll business, committed to making a name for himself, and providing a stable home for Catherine and their two children Manon and Arthur.
However, life as the couple know it, comes to an end when Catherine discovers him on a long distance call to one of his colleagues… Suddenly the romantic meeting all those years ago, the love between them and the security she has known tumbles down around her. She finds herself alone again.
But wait, life can’t stop, she is still a mother, she has children to look after, and she is an author with deadlines to meet and research to carry out. I read Catherine’s exploits with glee, and I must add the benefit of personal experience, easily picturing the scenarios as they arose. It was fun reading about her, with the support of her friends and her neighbour Florence, becoming another person. She emerges like a caterpillar from a chrysalis, trying new things and experiences, learning a lesson many of us forget when we become wives and mothers – that we are women too. This book makes for really entertaining reading. I laughed out loud at the situations Catherine found herself in, and at the antics of Jacques as he changed his colours as often as a chameleon as he attempts to get his own way.
There are great differences between the English and French in so many ways. It is not just the humour which is different, but also things which are lost in translation, or just plainly misunderstood. Sometimes the attitudes are poles apart, expectations are different, as are customs as well as the ways both nationalities react differently to situations and authority. This book does an excellent job in a very humorous way of highlighting these differences and using them to spice up an already thoroughly enjoyable and absorbing read.
Whether you want to escape from your life into Catherine’s, fancy a story with a French twist, or just want an excellent book to read, I thoroughly recommend French for Divorce.
Oh, and if you want to know what is French for divorce, you will have to read the book.
French for Divorce is available on Amazon.
Synopsis: Catherine and Jacques are living the good life in France until Jacques forgets his solidarity with his British wife, starts fraternising with a Polish colleague and Catherine realises that all is not equal in love and war.
Facing her own personal Brexit, Catherine suddenly becomes a character in her very own surreal adventures, to the backdrop of chic restaurants, chalets and chateaux.
The couple’s colourful allies of French gendarmes, champagne-guzzling best friends, improbable lovers and fairy godmothers and a charmingly chauvinistic father-in-law accompany them down their road to disunion … or reunification … in a country that gives infidelity the Presidential seal of approval.
