Joy has been a people-pleaser all her life.  Always the good girl, obedient wife, perfect mother and efficient teacher.  But now she's over 60, divorced, loving but distant from her children and after a disastrous Christmas she decides to do the adult thing...and runs away to her sister in France!

I wanted to alternately strangle and cuddle Joy!  She wants everything perfect and then complains when her family doesn't notice or appreciate all the effort she made.  She really made a rod for her own back, they saw their father disrespect her and now they are essentially doing the same thing.  However, once Joy gets to France and she spends time with her sister and her gaggle of gallic friends, Joy starts to come into her own and I feel that she really became her own person.

Isabelle is her complete opposite in many ways, scatter-brained to a fault but her family love her, her French neighbours love her and even her mother-in-law grudgingly respects her.  I think Isobelle really showed Joy how to be herself, be naughty or even just self-centred on occasion and people will still love you.

The gentle romance with Jean-Luc really gave her a chance to see what romance could and should have been with her husband if he hadn't been such a controlling curmudgeon. 

I even got a chance to practice my terrible school-level French with Joy as she settles into French life.  

A perfect little, feel good, happy vibes romance with a dash of learning to respect your own boundaries and that being a little selfish is no bad thing!