Tout Sweet - Karen Wheeler

This book is about the successful Karen Wheeler, who has a great job in fashion, a chic life, a posh flat in London, and a hot boyfriend.  But when the hot boyfriend dumps her, Karen sets out to search for a simpler life in France.  She buys a cottage in a remote French village, and befriends a group of eccentric and outspoken friends.  She learns how to be more self sufficient and enjoy the simpler things in life, while she navigates throug a dating minefield.

This book sounded good so I piced it up.  And though I enjoyed the story line and the characters, I found Tout Sweet quite slow.  This is a great book to take with you while you're traveling, and will be reading bits at a time.  But it is certainly a book I had no problem putting down.  So overall I would pass on this one.

Furthermore, the story was very reminicent of Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. Lead character goes to a new country, buys a house in desperate need of repair, makes some friends and learns to be self sufficient.  Unfortunately Tout Sweet was the cheaper immitation of Tuscan Sun.  So if you haven't read either book, then by all means get Under the Tuscan Sun, which was a much better book.  And no, having seen the movie does not count!