Enjoy ProvençaO Lugar Mágico Onde Se Curam Corações Partidos Conceived By Bridget Asher Available As Publication

o coração destroçado e ainda a chorar a perda do marido, Heidi viaja com Abbot, o filho de sete anos, e Charlotte, a desinteressada sobrinha de dezasseis, até à pequena aldeia de Puyloubier, no Sul de França, para uma casa de pedra já velhinha que tem sido responsável pela recuperação de corações partidos, desde antes da Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Ali, Charlotte revela um segredo perturbante e Heidi fica a saber a verdade sobre o verão perdido da mãe, quando ela era ainda criança, Ao mesmo tempo que três gerações colidem entre si, com uma vizinha que conhece todos os segredos da família e um francês enigmático, Heidi, Charlotte e Abbot iniciam uma viagem que passa pelo amor, pela dor e pelas gargalhadas entre as vinhas, os ventos quentes e pela deliciosa comida da Provença.

Conseguirá a magia da casa curar também o coração de Heidi Horrible, predictable, tedious had to force myself to finish it, So much whining it was hard to feel anything but impatience for the protagonist,deestrellas.
Lo mejor: El entorno, la maravillosa provenza francesa, La felicidad de las cosas sencillas, la forma de encontrarse, de perderse y de salir adelante,
Lo peor: Un tanto previsible y con un toque algo dramático que entristece un poco,
El mejor personaje: Abbot, es adorable, . . un niño especial
El que menos me ha gustado: Daniel, que ser tan tan egoísta,

Lo recomiendo para estos días de verano, es entretenido, sentimental y te permite viajar a un pueblo precioso Un libro delicioso sobre los nuevos comienzos, Muy feelgood. It took me to well over half way through this book to forgive the author for making this a sappy romance instead of a book about Heidi going to France to put her mother's house and herself in order.
It was in my humble opinion for too heavy on Heidi's grief which she obviously wanted to keep hold of instead of living, I thought the book was just okay and cannot say I would recommend it to anyone, I loved this novel. It's aimed at the heart, bigtime, I teared up so many times reading it, I adored being back in France Asher evokes that setting wonderfully, the food, the light, the French, She is especially spoton in bringing to life the sweet and sad complexities of family life, Three thumbs up

Parts of this book I really liked, but it took a bit to get to them, The first almost third of the book drags a bit with details of Heidi's grief over her Husband, who has been dead foryears, She wallows in it, refusing to accept and move on, The story finally moves on and gets interesting once Heidi moves to Provence at her Mother's prodding and starts to see and feel a little again, Bellino anche se me l'aspettavo un po' diverso, meno corale di quanto si è rivelato, Finale poco sviluppato, a mio parere, This book touched me in a deep and personal way, I have seen countless portrayals of love most are simplistic, All of Bridget Asher's books manage to capture this elusive concept in staggering detail and complexity, With each passing book her storytelling skills increase and she is able to reach ever higher levels of truth,

In addition to love, her books give equal attention to loss and grief, Most, if not all, of this complexity comes from the melding, blending, and transforming power of these two emotions,

The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted focuses more than ever on the latter emotion, What I found most striking was the transcendent nature of the characters' grief, While there have been countless portrayals of love, I have never found such a true story of mourning, There were several instances of I'm

sorry I can't come up with a better word truth, Here is but one example:

"I was painfully aware how selfish my grief was, My eightyearold son had lost his father, Henry's parents had lost their son, And Henry had lost his life, What right did I have to use Henry's death as an excusetime and again to check out"

The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted may be propelled by death both literal and figurative but it manages to have light moments, too.
How could it not Life is full of both, and this book is such a wonderful homage to just that,

If I had one critique, it would be that there is the slightest tinge of corniness, or cheesiness, or hokiness, or whatever you want to call it, concerning the house in France.
Chalk it up to my lack of faith in mysticism, but the repeated "miracles" were hard to swallow, As they were minor enough in the scheme of things, it is easy to let slide, especially in the onslaught of emotional resonance, Does that even make sense I'm having a hard time conveying this idea, It can, perhaps, be best summed up with this:

"Every good love story has another love hiding within it, "

and

"Grief is a love story told backward just as love is a grief story told backward, "

I highly recommend this book to pretty much anyone, We're talking about pretty universal stuff, after all, If you had asked mepages in, I would have said this book is a waste of time and worth aboutif you're feeling particularly generous that day, Now that I'm done reading it, I would give it more like,stars.

The plot is known: Heidi Buckley is still mourning the death of her husband who passed away in a car accident the year before, Heidi'syear old son Abbott, has become obsessive compulsive as a way to manage his own grief, Heidi's mom is heartbroken that the family summer home in the south of France isn't that where your summer home is located has been damaged due to a fire, The house is the backdrop to centuries of love stories and apparently has the power to heal a broken heart, Heidi's mom dispatches Heidi, Abbott and Charlotte, the sarcastic stepdaughter of Heidi's sister, to go to France to repair the house and take in some of its healing powers to boot.


I struggled in some critical places with this book, One, Heidi was a scatterbrained sap who I didn't feel like was grieving her husband Henry, so much as wishing he were there to do the hard stuff in life for her.
He's presented as the one who kept the trains running on time in their lives and not a partner and being of his own, What was missing was sorrow, Heidi presented him as the one who'd find your lost car keys, Two, this windswept love they supposedly shared felt immature and childish, Bridget's writing felt like how you'd write about love if you wereand not in your lates as these characters were, It wasn't the love of a lifetime, It didn't have that deepness and richness you'd expect from people that really love and support each other have, It was in fact surprisingly vapid,

Third, whole bits of life are just forgotten about, Heidi has a business called Cake Shop that apparently the indentured servant manages while Heidi is mourning her dead husband in France, Money also doesn't appear to be a problem either as when a robbery takes place and all their belongings are stolen, Heidi goes to the French equivalent of WalMart and replaces pretty much everything.
That on top of the money to renovate this healing summer home seems to just flow from unknown sources,

The book picks up significantly once the brood arrives at the French house, Other characters are revealed namely Veronique, who is sort of the Morgan Freeman of French love and romance for this story, Veronique is something of a caretaker for the house and one of Heidi's mom's oldest friends, Certain secrets are revealed, the obligatory panic is interjected "Oh no, Abbott is missing!" and resolved, new love blossoms and the ending tidies up as expected,

Something about the narration of the book threw me off, It's in first person but probably should have been in third, The pacing didn't match how a person thinks in real time and while some of the musings were thoughtful and worth shoring up in the back of your own mind, there were definite shades of Lifetime movies past, present and future in these thoughts, feelings and observations.


The most interesting character was Charlotte as she showed the most wisdom and insight of the whole bunch, Then again, I always find selfpossession and grace in teenagers to be interesting,

I might read another book by this author and while this one is not a beach read per se, it qualifies as a rainy day read, Dopo la morte di Henry, la vita di Heidi sembrava non avere più senso, il suo futuro ormai spento, i suoi pensieri erano sempre altrove, aveva iniziato a perdere le cose, a perdere gli amici ed il tempo era scivolato su di lei, la vita procedeva di gran carriera, ma lei non ne faceva parte.
Lunica cosa che le dava ancora un po di forza per tirare avanti era suo figlio Abbot, troppo piccolo per sopportare quella situazione, Dopo la morte del padre, aveva iniziato a preoccuparsi per qualsiasi cosa,

Lultima cosa che si era dimenticata Heidi era il matrimonio di sua sorella che dava a quel momento unimportanza incredibile, ma proprio in quelloccasione, larrivo di una brutta notizia le cambierà la vita: nella vecchia casa di famiglia in Provenza cera stato un incendio.


Quella era la loro casa delle vacanze e moltissimi ricordi ne erano legati, ma soprattutto lì dentro era racchiusa una bella storia damore: un loro antenato aveva chiesto ad una giovane di sposarlo, ma lei aveva rifiutato perché i suoi genitori erano contrari a quellunione.
Per dimostrare le sue vere intenzioni, donò alla ragazza quella casa che aveva costruito lavorando giorno e notte, ma tutto quel lavoro lo aveva indebolito, Si ammalò, ma lei lo curò per un anno intero, La loro vita insieme fu lunghissima e quando lui morì di vecchiaia, lei lo seguì dopo una settimana,

La madre di Heidi le spiegava che la casa era nata per un gesto damore era quasi una casa magica perché poteva aiutare lamore a manifestarsi, aveva il potere di unire due innamorati.


Heidi poteva chiudere gli occhi e ricordare tutte le estati passate con la sua famiglia, rievocare profumi, colori, storie, tutto le riaffiorava alla mente,

Il modo di raccontarci la storia è dolce e commovente, la Asher passa dai tristi ricordi del passato di Heidi, impregnati dalla devastante perdita del marito, alla luce che oltre il buio comincia a brillare quando Heidi si trasferisce nell incantevole paesino ai piedi del Mont SainteVictoire.


La Asher ci fa immergere in una terra splendida, la Provenza, una regione tra il mare e le Alpi, ricca di suggestioni, di profumi, di sapori, di colori, e di notti magiche, il vento che qui si chiami Mistral, sembra accompagnare con la sua musica questa romantica storia.
E un libro che si legge tutto dun fiato, come la rapida pennellata di un pittore, inebriati dal vino e dal buon cibo, cullati da una commovente storia iniziata con il dolore e terminata a voi la scoperta! This novel has been compared to Eat, Pray, Love, a memoir that I absolutely hated.
Thankfully for The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, this novel was everything that Eat, Pray, Love wasn't, It had characters that I cared about and a plot that actually moved, By the end of the book I wasn't happy it was over I was sad there weren't more pages to read,

Two years after her husbands tragic death, Heidi is still struggling to come to terms with it, Then, when her family's home in southern France is damaged in a kitchen fire, her mother convinces her to take her young son and jadedwithlife niece to France to begin repairs and renovations.
There Heidi will learn more about herself and her relationship with her deceased husband, her son will grow, and her niece will harbor a lifechanging secret that will bring the family together in a way they've never been together before.


Heidi's character was not selfish, It would only be natural for her to take on a sense of "woe is me" because her husband was gone, but she was also focused on her son, whom she loved with all her heart.
The characters in this novel are real, believable and deep, The scenery is gorgeous and themes throughout the novel are woven together, It was complex and beautiful,

Note: Despite the fact that I won a free copy of this novel, that fact didn't influence my review in anyway, I genuinely loved this novel This review also appears on Amazon, co. uk

". . We were told the house could make love manifest, It was capable of performing miracles, "

I have to say first of all that even though this book was well written it was actually even more depressing initially than I expected from the title! I wasn't expecting a wholly happy story, obviously but this book was a bit of a slog to get through from the go and I did wonder if I should continue to persevere with it.
I was having a fairly happy Friday until I opened this!

Joking aside, it does get off to a bit of a slow start and for me doesn't get going until about a quarter of the way through so be prepared for that.
The book centres on Heidi, a pastry chef who is still struggling with her grief two years after the death of her husband, Henry, Bringing up their young son on her own, she still seems to be in a fog, and its her wellmeaning interfering sister and mother who suggest that she take some time out at the longabandoned family home in Provence for a lost summer' and a way of getting back a bit of herself.
Heidi heads to France with her son and her niece and whilst there learns about love, loss and most importantly healing,

Though I've probably made that sound a bit like this is a selfhelp book, it was inferred to be more of a foodietype romance which is why I bought it.
I have to agree with the other reviewer that the romance is a bit lacking though and seems a bit rushed although the descriptions of Provence itself are beautiful and you can imagine yourself being there.
I think though for me, I was never fully engaged with this book the way I'd hoped to be as I couldn't really get into Heidi's head, I think that's because the start of the book was so angstridden and emotional that it was a bit bogged down in detail and you learned more about Henry than about her and she retains a real sense of distance from the reader perhaps she was intentionally written this way.
Situations were depicted very well but perhaps in an overly wordy, sentimental manner and she always seemed to be reflecting on encounters with Henry through flashbacks, I feel that the author tells' you rather than shows' you certain things which doesn't always work for me,

Nevertheless, Heidi's determination to keep Henry's memory alive for her son is admirable and lies at the heart of this novel, Poor little Abbot has been deeply affected by his father's death and along with a fear of people leaving him and him constantly worrying, he also has OCD, Abbot is depicted very well, The strongest character of all though is probably teenage niece Charlotte who is again angst ridden but at least knows her own mind, I didn't like Heidi's bossy, interfering sister particularly and her brotherinlaw didn't make much of an impression on me either,

The underlying premise of this novel is that It teaches you not to take things for granted and embrace life a bit more you never really know what you have until it's gone.
It's a story of a lost summer, family secrets and of people learning to heal after a loss, It's not the happiest novel in the world admittedly, but I actually enjoyed it though I did feel a bit sad by some of the content towards the beginning but I'm still glad I persevered.


Recommended if you enjoy women's contemporary fiction as I type this it's a bargain price on Kindle so would make a good holiday read! If you enjoy this then I can also highly recommend: "Sophie's Bakery for the Brokenhearted" which has a very similar premise though much more descriptions of food in it.
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