I must confess to feeling somewhat thrilled at the thought of getting my teeth into a brand new Maddie Please novel - guaranteed to keep me entertained! Once again I shall revel in a wondrous book, with good, strong heroines - gorgeous, real people, not in their Twirties. I am bored of stereotypical gorgeous characters in their twenties (or thirties at a push!) These thoughts were somewhat echoed by Bea’s thoughts when she was being grilled by Seraphina and her friends, about her back catalogue. No longer a gorgeous Twirty-something myself, I am of course neither bitter nor twisted, and most certainly, not jealous! One thing I am certain of, like Bea, is the lasting affect of a cutting comment from a teacher in a school report, regardless of your age. Personally I simply cannot forgive my PE teacher, back in the day, who deemed it appropriate to declare in my report that I ‘lacked spring’. I still can’t forgive her, to this day!

Our Heroine, Bea, is an author and so I couldn’t help but wonder how much of our author, Maddie Please, resides in Bea. I just adored her honesty - the way that she sometimes wrote herself a daily plan - and very occasionally stuck to that plan, and the way that she thought about the number of calories in her pudding - but very soon got over it!

I immediately empathised with Bea, and I loved the idea of her reuniting with the rest of the ‘BAGgies’ group from her boarding school days, Audrie and Gin. I felt that Bea had dealt with the fallout from her divorce, with impeccable dignity, and she deserved a break. Little snippets of subtle humour lit up the book throughout, for example Bea, after sharing a couple of bottles of wine with Audrie, and about to embark on a rich dinner, wonders whether or not she has packed any Gaviscon. Bea wondering, when the dog has sniffed her feet, and subsequently sneezed - whether or not she needs Odour Eaters! I also had to suppress a laugh at the idea of Bea waking up the morning after devouring a couple of bottles of wine with Audrie, declaring that she has ’badger’s breath’, and then proceeding to google what badgers eat - then deciding that the cuss must be truly worthy of them, considering their diet! As for Bea tumbling unceremoniously into the fountain - I have no words! Also when thinking, of plots for her book, worrying about earwigs on the ground, when considering passionate love scenes! These are just a few of the examples of Maddie Please’s wonderful sense of humour.

I initially felt for Audrie, with her talk of divorce, although the actual facts of the matter did cause me to emit a bit of a snuckle (snort/chuckle). Poor Victor, being accused by a seemingly paranoid Audrie, of wanting a divorce, just because he wants to retire!

Laurent was a delight, and I found myself hoping that Audrie was completely wrong about him - could he even offer one of the three longtime friends a spark of romance? (I must confess to desperately trying to find a satisfactory alternative to ’old friends’). Bea certainly made him laugh - in a good way - all too rate a commodity these days?

One thing did seem fairly certain about Bea’s French holiday - there seemed to be plenty of things to call upon her attention - not helping with her writer’s block at all, but then it may be that a break from all work, was just what she needed! She is currently wasting too much time trying to think of writing avoidance techniques, like watching programs about making chocolate biscuits, buying beautiful new notepads, and over analysing how to drink her coffee! Regardless, Bea certainly needs to breath new life into her current (feeling old to her) book - but does she have the wherewithal to do so in France? I just felt certain that Laurent could help in some way - but how to ’use’ him without upsetting Audrie?!

Alas we never did dig further into the details of ’The one With The Batman Underpants’. Perhaps we will find out more in a sequel?

It's such a refreshing change to have a story featuring older ladies, they're still fun, flirty and absolutely fabulous!

How gorgeous does the French château sound? It set the scene perfectly. And the food, did I mention the food? It all sounds so delicious and was always washed down with copious amounts of bubbly...did I also mention I need a holiday, to a château, in France?

I found it a highly enjoyable, entertaining and uplifting read.

Many thanks to Rachel's Random Resources for my tour spot.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐💫 (3.5)

I adored the setting of the book. It really made me want to be exported to beautiful France. Its a good book of friends being reunited. The characters are likeable and it's enjoyable.

’d have previously described this book as a quick and easy read, but each time I do that in future I think I will hear Bea’s author voice chastising me and reminding me how much time and effort goes into these “quick, easy” reads.

Bea is a wonderful character. Likeable and sympathetic, I was so glad she took the opportunity to reunite with her friends as I really felt like this would benefit her mental health as well as the fact that the change of scene may help with inspiration for her writing.

I know Bea went to Aix with no aspirations or ideas of romance, but I do feel like the romance storyline was organically developed in order to showcase both the excitement of it, and highlight Bea’s reservations about beginning a romantic relationship with someone new.

The beginning of the story was surprising to me as it felt very low, as we found out how all three of the main female characters were struggling with aspects of their lives and in particular, their relationships. I am used to Maddie’s books having more light-hearted elements earlier on, but overall this aspect did not dossappoint as there is definitely some fun humour as well as genuine laugh out loud moments.

Overall, another brilliantly escapist, engaging and uplifting read from one of my favourite authors. I highly recommend it!

🎶 There’s nothing like old friends 🎶 Old Friends Reunited is Mama Mia in book form.

Bea escapes to France in order to avoid a fast-approaching deadline for her next book, reuniting with her old school friends Gin and Audrie. Bea quickly finds that this escape isn’t as peaceful and inspirational as she expected.

Although it is not what I typically gravitate towards, this book is well written and an enjoyable read.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for the advanced ecopy in exchange for my honest review.

Old Friends Reunited by Maddie Please

I received an advance review copy for free thanks to Rachel's Random Resources and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Divorced and on a deadline, bestselling novelist Bea Pinkerton has a serious case of writer's block. With her agent breathing down her neck, Bea will do ANYTHING to avoid writing another word.

So an invite to a reunion with her old school friends at a beautiful chateau in France, is Bea's perfect chance to escape. Surely here, relaxing with old friends and drinking cold fizz, Bea will find inspiration?
But as soon as Bea arrives, she realises this is not going to be the peaceful getaway she anticipated. Her old school friends Gin and Audrie are in various states of marital distress and to top it off a camera crew has arrived to film the goings on at Chateau De St Cyr. Far from being calm, the trip is total chaos!

This is the second book I have read by Maddie and neither have disappointed. Maddie creates quirky characters that a reader cannot help but love. A delightful novel that is easy to read and will leave you with a smile on your face. I read this in two sittings, stopping only for some lunch - I had reached the end before I realised how long I had been reading for.

Rating: 4/5

I enjoyed this gentle and often hilarious tale about Bea and her friends when they reunite after several years apart. Set in France in a renovated chateau, it has instant feel-good vibes, and each of the three main characters has believable characteristics. Audrie, the owner of the chateau, has marital issues and a freeloading son she loves but despairs of, and Gin, the third member of the Baggies, is emotional about her latest divorce. Bea is the central character, a bestselling author with writer's block whose life lacks the romance and vibrancy of her stories.

I enjoyed the multi-generational elements and the heartwarming and uplifting qualities it has. It's an engaging story with an endearing main protagonist and a delightful vivid setting.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

I liked this book but I did not love it. The reason being was because I felt something was missing from this narrative: largely Bea’s friends. I was expecting them to be prominent in the story, as the title suggests, but they were merely a supporting cast to Bea’s journey. As such, I did not find the novel as entertaining as I had hoped.

It was refreshing to read about a protagonist in her later years and I enjoyed the wit and sarcasm that comes through Bea’s narrative. She is clearly stuck in a rut with life and this is transferred to her writing career. Faced with looming (late) deadlines, Bea cannot engage herself with her manuscript, recognising it being as lack-lustre as her life at the moment. Therefore, when the opportunity arises to visit her friend in France, Bea hopes this change of scenery will revitalise her writing… and herself.

Whilst there were many entertaining scenes in this story, I think there was a missing spark. As the title suggests, Bea does reunite with her old friends, but Please remains fully focused on Bea. I think the plot would have benefitted from concentrating on the other two women and alternating the narrative perspective. This would have made their characters more developed, rather than them scaffolding the plot. In my opinion, Gin and Audrie are quite forgettable and are missed opportunities for the writer to really expand upon them.

As a result, I thought this novel just trundled along and I did grow to forget that it was not set in the summer months because of all the positivity that Bea finds in France. I did not really believe in her relationship with Laurent but did cheer when Bea eventually finds inspiration with her writing. Watching her character evolve over the novel was really quite lovely and I found her a very endearing character. By the end of the story I really liked her personality and was pleased that she had found happiness again.

This was certainly a heart-warming story about being revitalised in middle-age. I don’t think the age difference between the protagonist and myself was an issue but I do wish Bea’s friends had taken more of a significant role in the story.

With thanks to Boldwood books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley, Boldwood Books and Maddie Please for a digital ARC of this book. Bestselling romance writer Bea Pinkerton has been struggling to get started on her latest novel which is now a year overdue. At sixty and divorced from her philandering embezzler of a husband, Bea is in a major slump. It definitely doesn’t help her self esteem that her two adult daughters consider her over the hill. When Bea receives an invitation to reunite with her two school friends at the French chateau (made famous on a reality show) of one, she quickly packs her bags. However, what promised to be a quiet relaxing break in the French countryside is anything but . . . This is a feel-good book which shows that change and romance are possible at any age. This book will definitely appeal to readers of “a certain age” who enjoy reading about characters at the same stage of life. I thoroughly enjoyed this delight of a book!

What a riot! I absolutely adored this book, friendships are just the best and this book just proves it ,
It’ll make you laugh and cry and what to read it again!

A lovely summer read with likeable characters and a wonderful story arc I had a lovely weekend reading this book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the novel.

EXCERPT: I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to remember the heat: the rich Provençal sunshine beating down on the stone pergola, the warm air faintly scented with rosemary and garlic. There would be a small, convenient table with a mosaic top by the side of my chair. And, just within reach, a bottle of their famous, sparkling Souffle de St Cyr in an ice bucket. Peace and quiet, apart from the twittering of a few small French birds in the trees and the occasional engaging conversation of my friends. It would be the chance to catch up on their news, have some amusing and entertaining discussion which had nothing to do with resurrecting my finances, or with my word count, deadlines, structural edits or William.

Time to think. Perhaps I had been coping, been strong, for long enough.

Audrie and Gin would commiserate with me over my publishing dilemmas, perhaps offer me some advice or tell me how much they had enjoyed my last book. We could cook together in Audrie's vast kitchen with its huge Lacanche range cooker. I could imagine nights sleeping peacefully, my dreams unclouded by my continuing inability to put one decent sentence in front of another. To remember myself as I used to be. When I wasn't just a bit part in other people's lives.

ABOUT 'OLD FRIENDS REUNITED': Divorced and on a deadline, bestselling novelist Bea Pinkerton has a serious case of writer's block. With her agent breathing down her neck, Bea will do ANYTHING to avoid writing another word.

So an invite to a reunion with her old school friends at a beautiful chateau in France, is Bea's perfect chance to escape. Surely here, relaxing with old friends and drinking cold fizz, Bea will find inspiration?

But as soon as Bea arrives, she realises this is not going to be the peaceful getaway she anticipated. Her old school friends Gin and Audrie are in various states of marital distress and to top it off a camera crew has arrived to film the goings on at Chateau De St Cyr. Far from being calm, the trip is total chaos!

Thank goodness for Bea's new French neighbour Laurent Sinclair - handsome, charming and perhaps exactly the romantic muse she needs to get her mojo back. But is Bea brave enough to take a second chance at love at her age? Perhaps with a little help from her friends...

MY THOUGHTS: I read this delight in one sitting. I didn't want to put it down. In fact, I didn't put it down. Old Friends Reunited was the perfect antidote for a dismal, wet New Zealand winter's day. The only thing that would have improved the experience would have been a glass or two of the delicious bubbly that is frequently downed in this book. WARNING: There is a lot of food mentioned in this book. Delicious food.

The characters are women in their sixties, all experiencing change in their lives, and trying to come to terms with that change and forge a new path for themselves.

Bea is a successful author whose husband recently emptied the bank accounts and ran off to Phuket with his twentysomething-year-old girlfriend. Audrie is certain her husband has another woman and is planning to divorce her - why else would he have a secret phone and be locked away in his study with a divorce lawyer? And Gin is reeling from the failure of her fourth marriage, the one she was sure was going to last forever.

But if you think that this is a book about three women sitting around whining about the men in - or out - of their lives, you would be wrong though, of course, there is a little of that. Usually with a glass of the aforementioned bubbly in hand.

These three have been friends since school; the sort of friends who don't need to meet up each week, who can go for years without seeing one another, but when they do meet up it's like they have never been apart. They just pick up wherever they left off. True friends. BAG - they were known as Baggies at school, now they feel they are just old bags! I so wanted to be the S on the end!

I really didn't expect to enjoy Old Friends Reunited as much as I did, but I absolutely adored this read. It is warm, and funny (I recommend cold, non-staining drinks to accompany this read), and a reminder that when we retire from work, we don't need to retire from life. The outcome might be a tad predictable, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. The journey getting there was a wonderful one.

Old Friends Reunited by Maddie Please is due for publication 14th July 2022.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#OldFriendsReunited #NetGalley

I: @maddieplease1 @bookandtonic

T: @MaddiePlease1 @BoldwoodBooks

#contemporaryfiction #friendship #romance #womensfiction

THE AUTHOR: Maddie Please was born in Dorset, brought up in Worcestershire and went to University in Cardiff.

After a career as a dentist Maddie now lives in Devon with her exceptionally handsome and supportive husband. They have 4 adult-ish children all of whom have left home and are probably rather surprised by all this. She did warn them.

Maddie is a voracious reader, and would enjoy hoovering, defrosting the fridge and cleaning the windows but unfortunately she doesn't really have time. She is very disciplined and sensible about her writing and she likes to write every day because it gets her out of doing the ironing.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Boldwood Books via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Old Friends Reunited by Maddie Please for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

This is another fabulous book that has humour at its heart.  I saw it as a book in two distinct parts.  The first part of the book explores the rediscovery of childhood friendships and a wonderful case of miscommunication.  In fact, it wasn’t just miscommunication but a clear example of what happens when communication fails, and speculation takes over. 

Bea, Gin, and Audrie form the perfect team as the Baggies, their special nickname for their childhood friendship group.  Each character was distinct and perfectly formed making them easy to imagine.  Audrie is dramatic and determined that her lifestyle and marriage are in jeopardy. Gin is recovering from another messy divorce and Bea still believes in love when it’s on the pages of one of her incredibly successful books, however, it’s too late for her own love story.

The real comedy takes place around the various misunderstandings and catastrophes which arise as a result of Audrie’s penchant for melodrama and her son’s inability to behave like an adult.  I can assure you that this information does not form a spoiler.

Once Bea sets about focussing on her writing, the mood and tempo of the book shifts a gear, and we see a different side to this wonderful story.  The shared challenge that motivated her renewed efforts was inspirational and I could almost smell the sea air and taste the amazing food.

There’s something special about spending time with old friends and this book served as an excellent reminder of that fact.  I regularly get together with my former school friends and the friendship is second to none.

I received this book via NetGalley and give it my honest opinion.

I loved this book, I couldn't put it down! Lots of laughter, love and romance in France just what you need for a holiday read.

The storyline is easy to follow and an enjoyable read. What do you need when you are going through divorce and marital difficulties? Friends in France of course! Oh and a handsome man that can take your mind off it all!

I recommend this book as the perfect holiday read.

I seem to be travelling around France with this author, having recently read and enjoyed Sisters Behaving Badly, and I'm not complaining for one minute! If anything, I enjoyed Old Friends Reunited even more.
What's not to love about three women in their sixties getting together again, reminiscing and reflecting ... and having a ball doing so. Writer, Bea and newly-divorced (again) Gin visit their old school friend Audrie (the owner of the château). Since school, their lives have taken them on very different journeys. Reuniting allows them to look back fondly on those years whilst also putting their current lives in perspective. The three women are funny, endearing, quirky and definitely have lots more adventures left to live.
Misunderstandings and uninvited guests lead to shocks and surprises, some funny, others heartwarming. For Bea, through whom the story is told, there comes a delightful new romance and a realisation that old friendships are worth nurturing especially when they can so dramatically turn your world upside down (in the best way).
The perfect way to escape everyday life and live out dreams of pastures new if only for a few hours.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an early review copy.

I love how Maddie develops characters that are loveable and as in this story, one’s that are older like Bea, Audrey and Gin who all went to St.Martin's boarding school and are still friends and get together at Audrie's
lovely chateau in France. The chateau was also promoted in a popular tv series.

Out of the three friends, Audrie is the only one who’s not gone through divorce, ever. Nevertheless, she’s now, undergoing a marital crisis, with Victor, her husband, who is looking into retirement.

The story was funny and kept you turning the page reading about what the three
60 ish ladies got up to, more so when the TV crew are back.

It was lovely to see what the three ladies learn about themselves whilst at the chateau.

well written, compelling plotline, glorious setting and well developed characters that I have taken to my heart. I loved it.

This was such a wonderful read and especially as it’s set in a beautiful chateau, beautiful scenery. Well written and a perfect summer beach read.

Lovely easy read, well written with great older characters which I love. Lovely story which draws you in. Thank you netgalley for the advanced copy

I love stories featuring older women and I loved this one, a compelling and entertaining story.
Great characters, a good plot, and a lot of emotions and fun.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine