French Restitution is a crisp, clean novella (and I don’t mean clean in regards to sexual content; reader beware, there are a few 18+ scenes). A romantic suspense story set in France … what could be more enticing than a chance encounter between a socially withdrawn English woman, Madeleine, and an emotionally insulated Frenchman, Jean-Luc?
Both Madeleine and Jean-Luc are coping with (avoiding?) baggage from their pasts, and they are steering clear of “too close” and potentially painful liaisons with members of the opposite sex. We all know people like that. Some of us are that way ourselves by choice. Life is complicated enough without letting someone else come too close to us, becoming an integral part of our lives. The older we get living basically alone, the more content we become with our company—although usually we sense that something really important is missing from our lives.
Madeleine has not only witnessed her mother enter into a string of destructive relationships (the last one with a wanted criminal, who steals from the gullible woman), but she has suffered because of her mother’s foolishness, too. As the novel begins, Madeleine is sacrificing her own anticipated Caribbean trip in order to help her mother, who is in trouble again, in France—only to have her car break down in a rainstorm, forcing her to accept lodging from a wealthy but admittedly handsome young Frenchman, Jean-Luc.
Jean-Luc is a somewhat cool and controlling individual who enjoys women for the physical rewards, but that is as far as he wants it to go—at least up until now. Tied up with the demands of his business affairs, he is also suffering from his own set of emotional bugaboos, feeling guilty because he failed to shield his sister from a past trauma that scarred her. He is intent on standing by her side, shielding her from all future tragedies.
Despite themselves, these two hit it off—and it quickly goes beyond mere physical fireworks to genuine love. The reader may find the credibility slips here a bit—how can such two avowed social isolationists fall for each other almost instantaneously? But stranger things have happened in real life.
Madeleine follows her ingrained pattern of shying away from becoming “too involved” and returns to England once her car is roadworthy, but Jean-Luc knows this is a mistake, that the two have a future together. A ruse perpetrated by the bad guy in her mother’s life brings her back to France for a scene that the reader could not really have anticipated. Jean-Luc comes to her rescue, endangering his own life of course, and the rest is history.
The writing is polished and fast moving, with the right mix of characterization, description, dialogue for a novella. I personally found Chantal, Jean-Luc’s traumatized but amazingly “together” sister, intriguing and wanted to know more about her story—but apparently that follows in a sequel. The quick pace keeps the plot fun and interesting, with little opportunity for the reader to lose interest. (However, the reader who is offended by erotica should choose another book. While not laden with adult scenes, there are a few.)