Thank you for my review copy. All opinions are my own.
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Well, that was a Do Not Finish for me. I literally got through 2 chapters and was like....where in the world is this going? Not a good fit for me.

A statement that occurs in the book in several places is "Everyone can be hard to live with." This is shown to be true Larisa's relationship with Brent, with Jack's relationship with Holly and even with Larisa's parents.

Larisa is an almost 40 year old single woman who is struggling with her mother's dementia diagnosis and with her failed relationship with her long-time boyfriend, Brent. Her emotional state leads her into a web of lies which eventually entangles her and those relationships she has a tenuous hold on.

The author's descriptions were well done. I could envision the old mansion Larisa was renovating and could feel the cold, dampness that invaded the walls. When she described the ocean swells and the snowstorm, I could picture them as well.

The premise behind the book is solid but I feel the author somehow missed the mark. I could not empathize with Larisa and her childish behavior. Her pattern of lying to avoid the issues in her life was her downfall and seemed unfitting for a woman her age. It was more something I would expect from someone in their teenage years.

I may not have fallen in love with this book but would be willing to read another offering from this author.
11 people found this helpful

The Little French Bridal Shop by Jennifer Dupee is a wonderfully written story that deals with reality and love.

Will Larisa find herself again?

Larisa Pearl
Larisa is our main character. She has recently lost her Aunt Ursula; her mother was diagnosed with dementia, she broke up with her boyfriend and was fired from her job. You could say she has been having a rough time of late. However, some of these things happened due to her own actions. Larisa is lost and has difficulty dealing with her mother's loss of memory and personality changes. It is almost like she has lost her center.

Larisa does some really off-character things like lying, starting a renovation that she really didn't know much about, taking someone's car, and wrecking it. However, lying is the worst. She isn't just lying to other people; she isn't truthful with herself. Larisa isn't dealing with the real reason that she is hiding at the house that Aunt Ursula left her father.

I felt sorry for Larisa at times, and at other times I was honestly trying to figure out if she had lost her morals. She is so selfish at times; all she thinks about is herself. Larisa does finally seem to get beyond her issues and steps up. By the end of the book, I was honestly rooting for her. Larisa has such a hard story, yet the author does a fantastic job of showing us how Larisa learns to deal with life. Ms. Dupee reminds us that everyone is human, we lose our way, but with patience and time, we can remember what is important.

Jack Merrill
Jack is our male lead; he is married, has triplet sons, a contracting business, runs a snow plowing business in the winter, and is the caretaker at Elmhurst, Aunt Ursula's estate. He is extremely busy and doesn't spend much time at home. Jack is also not himself; he is lost, his marriage is falling apart, and he misses Ursula, who was like a mother. Jack isn't sure who he is anymore, other than the father to his sons. He wants to be happily married, but it doesn't feel right. There is an attraction between him and Larisa, but it's complicated.

I liked Jack, and then I didn't, and then I did again. Jack's story isn't complicated, but it is something that happens. We have to work on marriage, and if we don't, it won't last. Ms. Dupee shows that in Jack. He isn't mean; he doesn't hate his wife; they just aren't in love anymore. They can't find things in common anymore. But he feels like he doesn't want to end it because it hurts to think along those lines. Ms. Dupee shows us life itself with Jack and his plight.

Four Stars
The story follows these two characters through some hard times and some good times. It is a glimpse into life and how these two characters deal with what is thrown at them. My rating for The Little French Bridal Shop by Jennifer Dupee is four stars. The author does a fabulous job of showing us what it is like to live with someone with dementia and how it affects the loved ones of the diagnosed person. I think the ending of this book is perfect.

If you like women's fiction/chick-lit, this is a good pick.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of The Little French Bridal Shop by Jennifer Dupee.

Until the next time,
~Jen

If you would like to see other reviews like this one, check out BaronessBookTrove.com.

Jennifer Dupee's The Little French Bridal Shop is a story that focuses on a woman returning home in the wake of a personal loss - that of her job. And, as it often happens, this prompts some deep personal revelations. I am generally a big fan of the hometown return theme. And, I think many readers will find a great story in that theme.

For me, I just felt like there were perhaps too many elements in this book that conflicted with that central premise - including a dementia plot line (which could have been its own central and poignant narrative arc) and other relationship challenges that took away from the story for me.

While this one wasn't the total escapist slam dunk I was looking for, I'll definitely look forward to reading more from Dupee.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

The Little French Bridal Shop is best described as a Hallmark or Lifetime movie in book form, but with more complicated family dynamics. It follows a woman named Larisa Pearl, who returns to the small Massachusetts town that she grew up in, Kent Crossing, to attend to the estate of her wealthy, eccentric great aunt who recently passed away. I loved the setting even though it is fictional, because it was so charming. I also grew up in small Massachusetts town, and I think that if you grew up in small town New England, you'll like Kent Crossing too. While in town, Larisa stops in a small bridal shop intending to try on dresses "for fun" and ends up buying one, leading her to make up an elaborate ruse about getting married despite being a stubborn bachelorette.

While a plot line about a woman fake-planning her own wedding is obviously dramatic and a bit over-the-top, I love anything vaguely bridal related so I ate this story up. I have also always wanted to do what Larisa does and try on wedding dresses for fun, even if only to fantasize about getting married even though I'm single and there's a pandemic going on. It is also a good reminder of the domino effect, and that there are consequences for our actions. Larisa manages to trick a lot of people, but not her late great aunt's groundskeeper Jack. Jack is experiencing lots of issues in his marriage that seems to be heading toward divorce, so he finds himself spending a lot of time at the estate with Larisa.

As I said before, this book explores complicated family dynamics, and it goes beyond Jack's troublesome marriage. Larisa also struggles as she knows her mother is slipping into dementia. I consider myself really lucky that dementia does not run in my family and as such I haven't had to bear witness to its effects, but it was still pretty heartbreaking.

Overall, this was a hopeful story that seamlessly incorporated some heavier elements, and a good quick read.

I was attracted by the blurb and the cover but, even I liked the style of writing, the characters grated on my nerve and the story didn't keep my attention.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Unfortunately not a book that ended up clicking with me. I don't need to like the main character as if they're a real person, but for this kind of book, I do feel that I need either to like or relate to them in some way, and I just didn't. Larisa's are not lies of omission, but outright full-on lies, and she's often kind of a terrible person. Protagonists behaving childishly, selfishly, manipulatively, foolishly - that's absolutely realistic. People behave like that all the time. But that doesn't mean I necessarily enjoy reading about them in the kind of heartwarming, touching, romantic book this purports to be. That applies to the male lead, Jack, too - given his set-up and storyline with his failing marriage and the way he treats his wife (his reasons for no longer being in love with her are things like that she wears jeans more than miniskirts these days), I couldn't find it in myself to root for any romance between him and Larisa. His only redeeming trait is how much he cares for the house, and while that's presented as significant and positive in the context of the story, it doesn't exactly make up for his entire personality and the rest of his behavior being awful.

The story as a whole was much heavier than I anticipated from the cover, title, and copy about it, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but it wasn't what I expected or was looking for, and I'm not sure the actual book is well-served by these elements. Dupee's prose is inclined to the heavy-handed, but it's perfectly readable; I just couldn't get into the characters and the story.

As a side note - fairly early, Larisa asks the bridal shop owner if the gowns are actually, as the shop name implies, French, which earns the response: "Oh, no, no, that's just a gimmick to get people in the front door." The same applies to the book's title. Neither France nor the bridal shop have much to do with the story, which probably should have been named after the house that's actually at the center of things. This isn't really a big complaint, I just found it to be an amusing detail - albeit probably unintentionally.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advance review copy.

This is such a beautiful cover and I was really drawn to it.
There really is a lot going on in this book.
Our main character who really isn't the most likable character finds herself returning to her small seaside hometown in Massachusetts to manage her Aunts estate after her passing.
Things are not looking to well for her as she's under a lot of stress after losing her boyfriend and her job.
Passing by a bridal shop in town one day she sees a gorgeous French bridal gown in the window and tries it on just to cheer herself up.
Next thing she knows shes the owner of a gorgeous gown and the owner thinks she's getting married in a matter of months. Is an omission still a lie when you can't get a word in edgewise with the bridal shop woman?
Her father is slowly losing his life partner, her mother to dementia and having hard time managing her care.
It won't hurt to pretend she really is getting married to help with the stress of things in her sad and mixed up world will it?
In the end we see it's best to let our authentic self shine through, falling and then getting back up again and realizing truth is so much better than pretending.

Pub Date 09 Mar 2021
I was given a complimentary copy of this book. Thank you.
All opinions expressed are my own

The title and cover drew me in immediately, but I was disappointed by the book. The main character lied her way throughout and acted like that was ok. I was relieved when she finally opened up, but by then it was too late for me.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I recieved an advanced copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. I enjoyed the main character Larisa. I enjoyed how they described the wedding dresses within this story. It has mental health representation in the book. It is in stores now for $26.99 (USD). All of the characters are enjoyable. I really enjoyed this author's writing style. I absolutely recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

Delightful. What started out as a trip to ready her Aunt Ursula’s house for sale leads to a faux engagement and a way Larisa gets to find out who she really is. This book will have you falling in love with each character, laughing and crying and wanting more until the very end. Such a great story.

Thank you NetGalley, Jennifer Dupee and St. Martin’s Press for this edition and hearing my honest review. Looking forward to reading more with you
#partner

I DNF this story because it wasn't the lighthearted cute story I envisioned it would be. It seemed a lot darker and less about a bridal shop than I wanted it to be?

This might be the book for you if you like:

- stories about facing struggles
- complicated heroines

This book asks "Is a lie of omission really a lie". The answer in this case is a resounding "Yes" and the problem is that she straight out lies.

I liked the premise of the book, but something didn't work for me in the implementation. Perhaps it is that one of her first lies is something that she didn't NEED to lie about, so it made her a little unreliable in my eyes.

I could relate to the struggles she was going through, but not at all with how she dealt with them. Some of the situations she put herself in were honestly cringeworthy. (I really struggled to empathize with her. One simple lie of omission quickly snowballed into something much bigger until there was seemingly no way out (but the inevitable). I also felt like her love interest, Jack, was also dealing very poorly with the struggles in his life.

What is done well:
The author has done a fantastic job with setting, and I fell in love with the little town, and with the townspeople that populated it. They were charming and friendly, and I could easily picture the setting. I also loved her sweet dad and everything he was doing to deal with her mom's Alzheimers.

The cover is lovely, but the story doesn't really have much to do with the bridal shop other than it's the place where all the drama kicks off.

Perhaps if this were more of a comedy than a drama, the snowballing lies would have been hilarious.


Ultimately, this is a story about facing your truths, which both Larisa and Jack had to do in the end. It had a lot of potential, but it didn't quite hit the mark for me.

I wanted to love this one, but while enjoyed the setting, the heroine got on my nerves. And for me to enjoy a book like this, I've generally got to care about the heroine. And quite frankly I didn't care about the heroine or what happened to her. That aside I did love the author's writing style as well as her humor. I will read other books by this author in the future.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press #NetGalley and The Girlfriend for this book.

The title is very deceiving. At first I thought a cute bridal shop in a small town. It was but that wasn't the premise of the book! I'm not going to give away why the bridal shop was relative to this book since it would be a definite spoiler but let's just say it was part of a series of lies Larisa told which really bugged me at first until she came clean as she put it.

This book was typical of what I've read many times before. A relative dies and leaves their home to another relative, i.e., daughter, son, granddaughter, etc. to be renovated, and in this case it was a great-niece and it needed to be upgraded and renovated.

Jack and Larisa were friends growing up in this small town, and he always did chores for Larisa's great-Aunt Ursula. The feelings comes back but Jack's marriage is in trouble and he moves into the house for that reason and to help finish renovating the house with her. Larisa's mother has dementia and has really never wanted to deal with it and avoided seeing her parents. They finally move into the house with her which was at the end of the book so no idea what the future held for Larisa but I can only imagine what happens with her mother.

The ending was a nice surprise and wasn't what I expected which was sweet.

The Little French Bridal Shop
By Jennifer Dupee

This is a bitter sweet story about a woman whose life has been turned upside down. Sometimes in life, and certain coping mechanisms will lead you to try to do things to cover up the harsh realities of a situation. In this case with Larissa, multiple situations come crashing as her relationship with her boyfriend in shambles, her aunt passing away, and her mother suffering from dementia, this has all become too much that she creates a different reality. So much so that on a whim, she purchases a beautiful wedding dress and of course, in a small town, her little lies spread like wildfire.

I did enjoy this story a lot and found the situation the character was faced with and the eventual growth and change amidst all this drama, lies, and avoidance in confronting her challenges. I enjoyed the intriguing and loving characters surrounding Larissa which helped with her finding her strength to grow, accept, and take courage to face problems head on. I found this character driven story heartwarming and delightful.

Beneath this beautiful cover is a gem of a story I enjoyed. I enjoyed the writing and in the intricate details of the story and the setting. A true delight!

So, the title of this book is super misleading…there was like two scenes in the bridal shop. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I liked this, but there were parts of it that I did NOT like. The main character wasn’t very likable, and when she was relatable, she was doing things that I wasn’t sure I should like her doing.

Thanks to @NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my ARC!

Given the title, I thought that The Little French Bridal Shop would be about said shop when in reality the shop is in only a scene or two.⁣
⁣
Instead, the shop, or rather the dress purchased, is the catalyst for the story. ⁣
⁣
When Larisa stumbles into the shop and buys the dress for her fictional wedding, it sets off a series of events that are both poignant and comical.⁣
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From Alzheimer’s to true love, home renovations to divorce, this story has more depth and less romance than I expected.⁣
⁣
Unfortunately, the writing style was a little too much tell and not enough show for my liking and I really struggled to connect with the lost 40-year-old Larissa. Had she still be in her 20s, I would have found her behavior understandable. At 40, I rolled my eyes and shook my head a few too many times.

This is a lovely, heart felt story about a woman trying to find her way again when her world starts to fall apart. It's a good story about how to navigate the ups and downs of life and not just through Larissa, but also through Jack and Clark and Kitty. Each of these characters is at a serious crossroads in their life and we see and feel all the emotions they go through as they make some good and some bad decisions figuring everything out. The book is well written, has great character development and a beautiful cover! That cover is the first thing that caught my eye about this book, I had to find out more about it after seeing it. A quick and enjoyable read.

My thanks to Jennifer Dupree, St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really interesting read. Larisa is at a crossroads. She las lost her job, ended her relationship with her boyfriend, lost her adored aunt, her mom is showing signs of dementia and she is feeling like life is passing her by and a little more than stuck so she heads home to prepare her aunts house to be sold. While walking through town Larisa decides to poke her head into The Little French Bridal Shop and with a slip of the tongue a huge lie is born and takes flight. It’s a funny, poignant, journey to finding herself, making it all right again and figuring out how to create a new path forward.