a literary fiction novel that intrigued me from the start with a complex character named Trevor whom is living an okay life full of family struggles, death, and romance living in Paris running a bike shop. I struggled a bit with the narrator but overall great writing and very descriptive. The way we follow Trevor’s journey and how he feels is phenomenal because it’s something that everyone can relate too with regrets etc and it gets you so connected right away. This is a book that I typically would judge a book by its cover BUT do not do that with this one as if this is your genre I would recommend completely.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Mary Fleming, and She Writes Press. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I can happily recommend Mary Fleming to friends and family. She is an author who understands family. And the art of regret.

By the time Trevor Macfarquahar was eight years old he had lost his sister, his father, and had moved with the remaining family - mom Helen and younger brother Edward - from New York to Paris. Though Edward flourishes in Paris, Trevor sees it all as yet another loss he cannot bear. His youth and adolescence are bathed in angst and his one desire is to return to the USA, to his country. His mom remarries a Parisian banker, Edmond Harcourt-Laporte and though Edward, who was too young to remember his sister and father, allows himself to be adopted by Edmond, to accept this 'new' family dynamic, Trevor can only see it as yet another heartless loss.

We peek into Trevor's life when he is 37, alone by choice. An attractive man, Trevor has a policy of always maintaining two casual dating relationships so no one would expect too much or take him seriously. Luck does occasionally shine on him though he doesn't recognize it as such - for years he worked for Nigel Jones who owned a bicycle shop called Melo-Velo on rue des Martyrs, repairing and selling new and used bikes, accessories, etc. On Nigel's untimely, unexpected death, Trevor inherits the shop contents and lease on the building and an upstairs room that he adapts and uses for a bare-bones living space. Not exactly his cup of tea, not the life he envisioned for himself and at that point in time bicycles were in low demand, but it was familiar and without pressure, so he settled.

Once a month he joined his lawyer brother Edward, Edward's wife Stephanie and their three children, and the occasional Harcourt-Laporte relative at his mother and stepfather's home for a meal and talks, a family tradition that abruptly drops from his routine when Trevor allows himself to be seduced by his brother Edwards' wife Stephanie. Seduced, and caught.

For five years, he was out of touch with all of his family. But there are more good luck moves he marginally notes. With several train personnel strikes and growing traffic snarls on the motorways of Paris, bicycling becomes fashionable again. The insurance company who owns his shop building gives him official notice - they will not renew his lease on the downstairs store when it expires. He will have to move, or sell the business. Last year that would have been an easy decision, but he was making a fairly good living now and he reluctantly seeks and finds a new building, moving the shop a 15-minute walk away, but maintaining the one-room living area above what was Melo Velo but is now a cell phone store.

Trevor also finds himself with what began as casual friendships but now are essential to his lifestyle. When the homeless guy, Michel, who begs in front of the grocery store across rue de l"Universite from the new bike shop gets picked up for a knifing incident and has to do jail time, Trevor allows himself to become the keeper of Michel's dog, a black labrador very much in need of extensive expensive vet care, a loving and loyal companion that Trevor will have to turn back over to Michel. He names her Cassie and sees her through all sorts of parasite medications, and begins to wonder where he will hide her if/when Michel gets out of jail. In the meantime, she goes everywhere with Trevor and becomes very dear to him.

It began with the dog but didn't stop there. Piotr is an undocumented illegal alien from Poland, a farm boy who begins working at Melo Velo parttime to help Trevor catch up on repairs and save enough to send to Poland for his girlfriend Wanda. The workload picks up, but with Piotr working full-time, Trevor has the option of some time for himself. Time to work on easing the regrets that so blockade his life and heart, especially over the last five years.

Cedric Merie is Trevor's only really close friend, a relationship that began in grade school in Paris. Cedric and his wife Viviane live at Vernon and want more time with Trevor, need to introduce him to their new adopted son and to rejoice with them the soon-to-be birth of their own long-awaited child. Edward, now remarried and with another child, wants to meet. While at Cedric's, Trevor again meets an artist named Bea Fairbank, a friend of one of his ex-lovers. He finds himself falling, but she knows him too well to take him seriously. He will have to show her that he has changed. But has he really? All of these new possibilities require Trevor to alter his responses and attitudes if they are to be successfully rebuilt relationships. Can he do it? Only time will tell.

What makes a person who they are? How do relationships define us? Nature or nurture?
Wonderful read.

Once again, this is a book that is somewhat outside my comfort zone, being both contemporary and with a male main protagonist. However, the author is female, and this was published by the independent publisher She Writes Press, and you know I like to encourage indie publishers and find new female voices. Mind you, to be totally honest, I really disliked the cover art for this book, and if I had seen it in a shop, I probably wouldn’t have ever picked it up. That said, I’m very glad that I read this novel because it reminded me that authors who successfully write first person novels with protagonists that don’t match their own gender, must be admired. At least I think that Fleming did a good job here, since I don’t believe she fell into many clichéd traps (except for one) regarding the male psyche.

Of course, Trevor is a flawed character, which is why we both get annoyed with him, and yet he’s still very endearing. This is partially because he’s a bit of a curmudgeon, whose grumpiness often gets pushed aside despite himself. For example, there’s his relationship with a stray dog that “belonged” to a homeless man, which he ends up having to take care of, much like his inheriting the bicycle shop. By the way, this bit of the story seems to be something of a metaphor for Trevor in general, which was a very nice touch on Fleming’s part. Then there is Trevor’s hiring of the young Polish man who was desperate to not get deported. While this seems to be a hire of convenience, since he needed an extra pair of hands during the strike anyway, Trevor also comes to care for Piotr as much as he comes to love the dog, which he ends up naming Cassie.
In fact, there are a lot of these little parallels and metaphors going on in this novel, which means that this book has more than what meets the eye. The question then becomes, do they come together, and if so, was that Fleming’s aim? I’d say that I believe Fleming was hoping that the reader would catch all these bits and pieces, and for the most part, I think they came together quite well. However, there were a couple of things that seemed to dangle loosely with the ending of this book, that made me wonder if Fleming either decided to ignore them, or preferred to avoid wrapping them back into the story. Don’t get me wrong, I think my readers already know that I don’t believe that all novels need everything to be tied up in a pretty bow at the end, but sometimes too many things feel unattended; it would therefore be helpful if just a couple more of these bits got a touch more attention. That said, I did enjoy the ending to this novel, and I don’t think Fleming could have concluded it better.

I should also mention that I truly appreciated how Fleming made Paris into yet another character of this novel. While reading this book, it was totally obvious to me that Fleming knows Paris, and its surrounds, both in all their shame and their glory, right down to the bones. In fact, when Fleming described certain places in various types of weather, I felt like I could almost see and smell those spots. This was a true pleasure to read, and even when I felt like the story line was getting slightly muddled, Fleming was able to clear these bits up by waxing lyrical about this street or that park or those buildings, and how they differed from season to season, year to year. This was probably Flemings greatest accomplishment with this novel, and kudos for her evoking such strong emotions about this through her writing.

All told, this was a fascinating book, which I enjoyed very much. I think Fleming did a very good job in portraying Trevor in all his strengths and weaknesses, and bringing the story to a very satisfactory, coming-of-age ending. However, I’m not sure that Fleming pulled enough of the metaphors and parallels together with the plot, but she certainly afforded us an intimate look into turn-of-the century Paris through the eyes of a man in the midst of change. For this, I think I’ll give this novel a strong four out of five stars and warmly recommend it to my readers.

Mary Fleming, Author of "The Art of Regret" has written an emotional and thought-provoking novel. The timeline for this novel is in the author's present and also goes to the past when it pertains to the characters or events. The Genre for this novel is Fiction. The author describes her characters as complex, and complicated. The story takes place in France, but America is mentioned.

Trevor McFarquhar has had early trauma in his life. He lived in America and after his father's death, Trevor moves with his mother and brother to France, where his mother remarries. Trevor fixes bicycles for a living and is barely getting by. There is family suspense, drama and deep secrets that has Trevor at times feeling isolated from his family.

This is a very slow-paced novel, that is often repetitive.  After the first 25 percent of the book, the story moves slowly forward. After the 1995 transit strike, people are starting to buy bicycles, and Trevor is in a better situation, but questions what he wants.

At one point in the story, Trevor mentions regret in regard to his taking pictures. He often feels he doesn't get to capture the vision of the picture, that it is too late. Will Trevor be able to move on?  What secrets seem to be involved. I appreciate that the author discusses the importance of family, second chances, love, and hope.

Death seems to define this story. The lack of definition of the deaths and the surrounding wall of silence becomes the narrator’s all-consuming malaise. There isn’t a big story, just a well told, extremely descriptive blow by blow of a “predictable, independent life” that brings no inner peace. Relationships come, go, bloom, fall apart, much like anyone’s life. Mistakes are made, secrets are kept, that wall of silence is built hoping to protect yet ultimately having the converse effect. A relatable story that somehow felt off.

My biggest problem with this book was the narrator, being a man. It felt like a woman. I just couldn’t connect. Not that the writing was bad or the story lacking both aspects were actually strong and good, but the feel, the fabric, was je ne sais quoi.

Thank you NetGalley and She Writes Press for a copy.

A different book, for sure.

Trevor ran a bicycle shop on a street in Paris. Born in New York, traumatized by early childhood loss, they moved to Paris. No ambitions or desires fired his passion, with few friendships and fewer relationships, his life was almost colorless. Till the transit strike occurred, and people now wanted his bikes to travel. Then a risqué relationship imbalanced his family equations. What would Trevor do now?

My first book by author Mary Fleming saw me quite immersed in the different sections of the story. The dynamics of the prose were on a constant move. Trevor's moods were like night and day, active in certain section, complacent most times. I wouldn't say I connected with him, but I could understand the shades of his life that the author showed throughout the prose.

His relationship with his brother was like a wave, with constant ebb and flow. And it moved with time. Trevor had much to learn too. His dim view of his life needed a makeover. I liked how the author made him try to sort out his past so that he could live his future unencumbered. I loved the parts of his introspection as they gave clarity to my life too in some aspects. The last few pages had a shocker which turned the book, and Trevor's outlook of his life and family.

This entire book was Trevor's slow journey in discovering himself and his family. He grew from indifference and complacency to strength and independence. As said before, a different read with a Parisian vibe flowing through the pages of the book.

Recommended for lovers of literary fiction.

'This meant that all the thoughts, all the feelings, all the half-remembered things stayed trapped in my brain. Like birds in an overcrowded cage, they flapped wing against wing with nowhere to go.'

Trevor is an American, the United States his true home and this is the one permanent, solid fact of his childhood. Possibly the only fact he remembers correctly. It is in America that his family structure crumbles after incredible loss and from that moment on changes the meaning of home, both physically and emotionally. Silence serves to disrupt the natural process of grief, and France becomes his family’s destination all because mother had once ‘spent a fun year in Paris’. So much of his youth is buried, things never discussed, questions never posed, everything figured out on his own when he is just a boy which sadly Trevor builds his memory upon. As soon as he is all grown up, he will return to America! That is the driving force of his youth and everyone knows it. And yet…

We find him in his thirties, running a Parisian bicycle shop that he ‘inherited’ from the prior owner. Nothing about the old shop has changed, much like the rest of his life, here too Trevor is ‘just passing through’ and has no plan to alter anything, leaving the shop much as it was when the previous owner Nigel was alive. It isn’t really his, that seems to be the one thought that pervades his life, the feeling that nothing belongs to him- not country, family, lovers nor business. The bike shop is barely surviving until he has a turn of luck when transit workers go on strike, paralyzing the train and subway system fighting for social security reform. Suddenly, his bike sales are kicking up, eviction lo longer looming but it was never his dream. Just another thing that ‘fell into his lap’, not much of a choice. He is the black sheep of his family, and when love presents itself, it’s going to be yet another threat to the shaky relationships he maintains with his brother and mother. Trevor finally feels something worth holding tight to, sordid or not, this attraction is impossible to deny and why should he? He feels electric with it!

His relationship with his brother Edward is one of punishment, rejection and regret. Wildly opposite of each other, both chose to process the tragedy of their childhood in different ways, one that distanced them as siblings and challenged loyalty (at least to Trevor’s mind). But how much of what we believe and build our morality upon is ever factual? How much do we destroy on our ‘self-righteous path’, forcing us to stop seeing our own blood as people with feelings too, doing their best to have a life? The danger in keeping the past locked up tight is how much love we push away, and all the mistaken beliefs that are given life. Trevor has always felt that his mother too is suspect, the careless whims leading them all to Paris, forcing her children into a brand new life in a foreign country, making a ghost of the family they once were, not realizing how much it will haunt Trevor into adulthood. Maybe the very things that drives him from his family began with her or at least his invention of who she is, rather than knowing the truth. It may not just be all ‘appearances’ his mother cares about, like any of us, she too has her reasons.

We often decide on our own facts within the family, and carry that into relationships we build or deny. There in lies the germ, how we invent everyone, rather than seeing them as they are and as we see with Trevor, we do it with ourselves as well. He spends so much time holed up in his own world, not wanting to let anyone in, especially his family.

What happens after the fall may be the making of Trevor, finally. Can family ever mend, from the biggest betrayals? Trevor has a lot to learn, his myopic view of everyone in his life alienates him, of his own accord. Tragedy slips in again and I felt choked up, which doesn’t happen often in fiction for me. I sometimes wanted to punch Trevor as much as his brother does. It all began with his mother and ends with her too, and all I can think about is how much we destroy our families when we stubbornly decide things, based on weak assumptions. How often it is our own lack of effort at fault, we ourselves who cause so much damage to our happiness, and that of others.

For a brief time the reader lives like a true Parisian, and it’s lovely but for me it truly is a novel about the art of regret, the ways we shock ourselves with our choices, behavior. If Trevor is lucky he will make amends before it’s too late. If he could just stop seeing himself as a victim that the whole world, or more his family, is against. I read it with a heavy heart, but the city of Paris was a balm.

Publication date: October 22, 2019

She Writes Press

This is one of the most gorgeous and haunting story I have ever read. The Art of Regret really sums up the entire synopsis of this novel.

The book centers around Trevor who is living in Paris after his family goes through major tragedy back in New York. Trevor is now middle-aged and owns his bike shop, but he lives with so much regret and personal blame for the things he thought he was responsible for as a little boy. Because of this, he has trouble with all his relationships, his mother, brother, and any romantic relationships. Let me say this Trevor at his core is a good man who ultimately carries a burden that is almost too much for him to bare. Then another personal tragedy occurs, which leads him to learn the art of forgiveness.

This is literary fiction at its core. This is all about relationships and overcoming the shame one feels. This is some of the most lush writing I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

Thank you She Writes Press for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars rounded up.
Trevor McFarquhar runs a bicycle shop on a street in Paris he describes as “ ...the Sacre Coeur at the heart of Montmartre, is not the tourist circuit and has no pretensions to Parisian grandeur. Behind and above it’s modest shop fronts are forgettable lives. Lives like my own, which I had reduced to a box, a one-room shop.” For a while as I read about his indifferent and unremarkable life, though I felt for him in a way, I thought that he would be an unforgettable character, but I was wrong. He is a memorable character. While he was born in New York, he has spent most of his life in Paris, when his mother moved him and his brother there after a family tragedy. He has “casual” relationships with women and his relationship with his family is strained. Then things suddenly change and Trevor comes out of his lethargic state when there is a transit strike and his bicycle business booms. He comes alive when he begins an affair, one that further deepen the rift with his family.

When the strike and the affair abruptly end, Trevor seems to revert to the old life of complacency and the book moved pretty slowly for me at times. It was a slow burn getting to how impacted he was by the traumatic losses of his childhood and it took time to understand why Trevor is where he is in the present. His regrets come later in the book when a series of events occur that give him pause - regrets over things he’s done , regrets over not having faced the things unsaid. It is not just his regrets that make this quiet character study a moving one, but the things he decides to do. Mary Fleming has lived in Paris and her intimate knowledge immediately takes you there. 3.5 stars but I have to round up for the satisfying second half of the book, in particular the ending.


I received an advanced copy of this book from She Writes Press through NetGalley.

I unequivocally loved this book. It was beautifully written . The main character is male and the author is a woman but she brilliantly captures his point of view. It was so moving and believable. She depicts Paris and its arrondissements so clearly and lovingly you know she must be a Parisienne. Trevor, the main character, evolves and matures after a series of horrible events that leave him scarred and hopeless. I felt so invested in his family and his agonies and moved by his eventual realization that the art of regret is not limited to photography but also to life and our ability to forgive others and ourselves. Bravo!

The Art of Regret is a interesting story. The characters are well developed and I enjoyed that it took place in France.

Mary Fleming's The Art of Regret is one of the best books I've read in awhile. I expected to love the setting as I adore Paris. Falling in love with the characters was an unexpected bonus.