Hidden In Paris by Corine Gantz
Publisher: Carpenter Hill Publishing
Release Date: 19th April 2011
Rating: 2/5
Source: Bought
Amazon Summary:

In a tale of friendship, self-discovery and love, three women running away from their lives become unlikely friends in a beautiful house in the heart of Paris. Lost in France, a country she mistrusts, among French people she hardly understands, Annie has trouble venturing away from home since the death of her husband. And since home happens to be a small jewel of a house nestled in the heart of Paris, why would she ever want to? But when bankruptcy threatens her beloved house, her one anchor in life, Annie has no choice but to find renters, and quick. Leave it to someone socially phobic to phrase a want ad in all the wrong ways. With shimmering promises of ‘Starting over in Paris’ –– a concept she has no intention of applying to her own life––Annie attracts tenants with the kind of baggage that doesn’t fit in suitcases. A long-legged, cool-headed ex model (everything Annie is not) on the run from her abusive husband, a frail young woman harboring a possible death wish, a mysterious French artist, and an infuriating blue-blooded French man soon threaten Annie’s way of life in ways she never anticipated. But when Annie finds herself reluctantly yet actively engaged in the rescue of her tenants, she discovers that she might just save herself in the process. 

I must admit, I bought Hidden In Paris on a bit of a whim. Danielle featured it on the site and I quite liked the cover so when I saw it on sale on Amazon for $3.99, I couldn’t resist and duly sent the sample to my Kindle. The sample was excellent so I got myself the whole book and it became my most recent Kindle read. After the intriguing Prologue, I expected a ‘starting over’ kind of novel, for all those who descend to Annie’s house when she’s forced to rent out rooms so she doesn’t have to sell her house. I thought it would be similar to UK author Rowan Coleman’s novel The Happy Home For Broken Hearts, but sadly that wasn’t the case. The premise is great and the setting of Paris works well, but I found myself bored when I was only 50% done with the novel and that’s never a good sign, is it? You don’t want to reach the halfway stage of a novel and realise you just aren’t liking it so much.

I can’t really pinpoint what I didn’t like. Because there’s a lot of it. The books starts well enough, introducing us to Annie who lives in France and who’s raising her three kids by herself after her husband died. Then we’re introduced to Lola, who’s unhappy with her life in California and her mentally mean husband. And finally we’re introduced to Althea who’s struggling with an eating disorder. Both Lola and Althea see Annie’s ad and they decide a chance of scenery is exactly what they need and soon, Annie has a houseful of strangers. I liked that, I found it captivating and you’d think that will three women all with different problems then the novel would be fairly well-paced with each woman trying to fix their respective issues, but it’s not. Not much really happens and that’s where my issues with the book come in because I don’t like books that ramble on for chapters with nothing much happening. I don’t have the patient for books with no action. So I was at a loss and ended up skimming the last half of the book. (Again, not a good sign, but it got to the point where I just wanted it to end, sadly).

I figured the characters would be interesting, but again, not really. I found Annie to be very peculiar. Her personality (to me) seemed to jump around a lot. She was very self-righteous toward Lola who had just upped and left her husband, but when she found out the real reason Lola left she was both cheery (for being proven right) but also supported Lola to Lucas. It confused me, quite frankly. In one scene, she was glowing as Lola talked to her husband and then a moment later she was comforting Lola telling her she’d done the right thing. It didn’t make sense. Lola was a much calmer character, though a bit of a doormat. I liked Lola, despite her doormat tendencies. At the beginning Althea was my favourite character, but I rapidly lost interest in her because nothing happened. It was glaringly obvious that she had a problem with food and I was astounded Annie and Lola, two perceptive enough people, failed to recognise it when it was staring them in the face, it didn’t hold water with me, and I was disappointed at how clueless they were. Even a blind person could have picked up on it, frankly. There was so much that could have been done for Althea’s story but instead she flounders, becoming enraptured by tortured painter Jared.

I found the writing to be a bit peculiar. I know it was set in France, and Corine Gantz herself is French, but I presume her book has been published by an American publisher so I can’t understand why the book is riddled with so many errors and so many stupid-sounding sentences. I picked up numerous spelling errors and I was constantly re-arranging sentences to make them make sense to me. To correct them to the way they should have been written originally. (I’d love to give examples, but I truly can’t be bothered to wade through and find some). I understand that sometimes authors do it to be authentic, but it’s not really necessary. It drives my internal editor insane, it honestly does. Unfortunately Hidden In Paris wasn’t a book I loved, and I was desperate for it to end, but not in a good way. It’s a shame; I wanted to like it, I wanted to enjoy it, I wanted it to be a read I enjoyed, but it was just too slow for me and it’s just one of those things. I liked the setting of Paris, I’m becoming more of a Paris fan with each novel I read it seems, but overall I wouldn’t recommend the book, not unless you like novels that are slow-going. Not for me, sadly.

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