Seven Letters from Paris: A Memoir

Seven Letters from Paris is a memoir by an American woman now living in south-western France, Samantha Verant. Moaning to her closest friend Tracey about her life’s latest terrible turns (jobless, deep in debt and her marriage on the rocks), Samantha Platt, almost forty, is reminded about a European holiday twenty years earlier, and a chance encounter with a Frenchman, Jean Luc Verant. She digs out the seven letters he sent her from Paris. And what letters they were: full of romance and promise. Letters to which she never replied….

With the wonders of the Internet, Facebook and Google, Samantha tracks Jean Luc down, apologises, twenty years late, for her lack of reply, and sends him a link to her seven-part blog describing their Paris encounter. Dare she hope for a civil reply, let alone something more? Obviously, since, in the opening passages, Samantha refers to Jean Luc as her husband, she can. But after an interval of twenty years, there are more than a few obstacles, psychological, logistical and bureaucratic, to be overcome before this true romance can properly develop from its initial spark. This is an enjoyable read: at times moving and often hilarious, with a true happily-ever-after ending.