Not Quite Nice

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The main focus of the story is the characters, loveable eccentrics who you feel you’d love to meet and chat to. And while at first it appears that many of the adult children are selfish, money-grubbing, nasty types interested only in their inheritance, they prove to be as human and flawed as their parents. Giving 4 stars only because at times it becomes pretty predictable but not enough for me not to want to finish it and find out the ending asap. Forced into early retirement and fed up with babysitting her bossy daughter's obnoxious children, she sells her house and moves to the picture-perfect town of Bellevue-sur-Mer, just outside Nice.

Nice Series by Celia Imrie - Goodreads Nice Series by Celia Imrie - Goodreads

However, life is never quite as simple as it seems and as skeletons start to fall out of several closets, Theresa begins to wonder if life on the French Riviera is quite as nice as it first appeared. Actress ( The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) Imrie's lighthearted first novel touches on real-world financial, occupational, and familial concerns of older readers in a way that's genuine and yet reminiscent of old Hollywood movies . I was unsure at this point whether the book was attempting to be a farce but it soon became clear as other characters were introduced that we were going to be treated to a bunch of cliche-ridden caricatures rather than real, fully fleshed-out, interesting characters. The author slots in some choice recipes for the reader to feast upon, including traditionals such as Pissaladière and Merda de Can (you might guess how that could be translated, and you would be right – nothing to do with dog poo apart from the colour match - it is a kind of gnocchi, comprising potatoes and Swiss Chard). I wasn't really sure of the timeline for the book, but things seem to happen incredibly quickly, and I would have liked to see a bit more of the struggle it is when setting up in a new place and country and that it takes time to settle in and find firm friends.

Personally I'd actually love to take a trip to the Nice area now and take this book with me to read while I'm there! Acting alongside Gere, Imrie says with a deadpan expression, was an experience she undertook on behalf of the “whole female population”.

Not Quite Nice by Celia Imrie | Goodreads

I would quite like to swerve off in a different direction and play someone quite horrible and evil,” she says, with a gleam in her eye.It is a light read that at times struggles to find its rhythm but it is written with sincerity, humour and warmth and some of the observations of both the locale, the customs and the people are beautiful brought to life. There's Carol, the infinitely glamorous American and her doting husband David; the erstwhile British TV star Sally; the ferocious Sian and her wayward Australian poet husband; the sharply witty Zoe with her strangely youthful face and penchant for white wine--and the suave Brian who catches Theresa's eye.

Not Quite Nice (Bellevue-Sur-Mer, book 1) by Celia Imrie

I glanced at the other reviews for this book and a couple mentioned the book might have worked better for them if they’d listened via Audible as Imrie narrates. Well I should have known from the first chapter which presented the family from hell treating our 'heroine' in the most vicious and appalling way possible, that I was not going to find well-written, original, believable or interesting characters. I listened and swapped over to reading often as Imrie’s slow drawn out narration of most of the scenes increased my impatience with the novel.These middle aged horrors seem to have all been hatched from hell with no help from their mother or father. In her book, Imrie describes Theresa as a “get-up-and-go kind of person” who “dreaded days when she might wake up and have no reason to get out of bed”. There are some quite nice observations on the relationships between mothers and grown up (or not) children. The small community of English-speaking expatriates, embraces the new arrival, and soon Theresa is enjoying her new life.