Twenty-One Nights In Paris was such a fun Rom Com read!!

Leonie made me feel like I was in Paris experiencing it myself!

I enjoyed the characters and their story. Love usually always wins no matter what. Whether your family approves or not.

I can’t wait for Leonies next book!!

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

Twenty-One Nights in Paris
by Leonie Mack
Pub Date: 06 Oct 2022

While I have read many "fake relationship" tropes this had a slight twist being it takes place in Paris. The writing was descriptive and draws you right into the Parisian setting. Our heroine, Ren, is the misunderstood rich girl and Sascha is the boy from "the wrong side of the tracks" with a heart of gold. Yes, I have read similar, but the main couple was cute (just had to overlook they seemed young and not grown adults!), and I enjoyed the side characters in Sascha's world. Ren's people not so much...

3 stars

I throughly enjoyed this novel. In fact, it’s one of the few lately that has held my attention throughout the entire story. While I could see a few things coming, I never felt like rushing though it. I would definitely recommend it to friends.

This book exceed my expectations. I'm a sucker for a good romance and I love the way the author wrote this fake dating story. It felt different somehow. It felt more love at first sight. I enjoyed the relationship the main characters had with each other and that they actually got to know each other. It wasn't about the attraction, but more about the connection between the two.

This story made me love Paris a little more and I hope to visit at Christmas someday.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I know, I know- it hasn’t been long since my last gush about the beautiful storytelling of Leonie Mack, but, well you’re getting it anyway!! Sighs dreamily – I loved this book so much!

Here we meet Ren, who is a part of a world that is very far away from most people’s-that of a socialite heiress. I was straight into the lavish lifestyle which was perfect as when you meet Sacha, a man that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from (if you know what I mean!), you soon see the polar differences in the simple and pure versus the extravagant and sometimes slightly vacuous.

The premise of this book was perfect- who doesn’t like a fake relationship? Add to this the time limit on their coupling, the beauty of the landscape – Paris from every angle- and of course the perfection of their feelings for each other … let’s just say you have to get onto this, another Leonie Mack stunner!

Thanks so much to the publisher and netgalley for the book in return for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5

Stuck in a reading slump, I needed a light hearted, entertaining romantic story. I had binge read Leonie's earlier Venice-books, so I was hoping this new novel would do the trick. And it did!

I could find and list the weak points of the story, but it actually delivers what it promises: helps you to forget your boring and monotonous life for a few days, and flies you to Paris, at Christmas, to live the fairy tale.

Thank you NetGalley and Boldwood Books for this Advance Review Copy.

I tried but struggled to get through this one. I kept drifting and found it hard to keep my attention.

Twenty-One Nights in Paris by Leonie Mack is a fake-dating rom-com that takes place in Paris. Ren is a British heiress to an auction house who’s home away from home in Paris is the Ritz. Our male lead is Sacha, a Lebanese Parisian who grew up in a low-income part of Paris. They meet when her town car hits him on his bike.

I am generally a huge fan of romances where one of the lead characters moves or is on a long holiday and romance ensues with a local, so I was very excited about this. Unfortunately, this did not deliver for me.

As other reviewers have mentioned there was casual racism all over this novel. Sacha is from a poor part of Paris and his family is originally from Lebanon and all throughout the novel we get ways in which he would experience racism whether it be from Ren’s family, friends, coworkers, or random people. The issue isn’t these experiences are in the novel, but they do not feel authentic – they feel like what a white person thinks they would feel like, which makes sense as the author is a white woman. I don’t think this was the intention of the author, but I did feel a bit cringe reading parts of it. There is also no resolution within the story about it – it just kind of ends and everything is all the sudden great. Sacha’s race and experiences feel like they’re in there to make him more “interesting” and I’m not down with that.

I also felt like the writing was a bit underdeveloped and clunky. It can be seen very early on when the fake dating starts. Ren’s broken engagement has finally reached the media and she is trying to lay low and not return to London, and she somehow convinces Sacha to fake date her. We don’t get any real backstory to Ren’s life in London, nor something in Sacha’s past that may allow him to agree to do this, he just accepts. Time after time it’s more telling rather than showing. I also never felt the sparks between the characters and the pacing of their romance felt a bit strange. It was very, very, slow where nothing happened and then all of the sudden we’re super in love. Unfortunately, the more I think about it the worse I think it is. If you’re just casually reading you may question some things, but if you’re ok to just say yes, and accept things as they are it may not bother you. For me I found myself putting the book down more frequency and for longer than normal – it wasn’t pulling me back in.

The best part of all of this is Paris itself. The descriptions were great, I felt like I was there, and you can tell the author loves the city. The Christmas market scenes are great, and she makes it feel magical. The only difficult part about Paris was a lot of dialogue was in French and there were no footnotes with translations. Maybe they will be in the final copy because I could not be bothered to google translate that frequently. If you read both English and French I think it could be fun though.

Overall, I wanted to and expected to love this book, but it just fell flat. If you want a romance based in Paris during Christmas time, I would maybe skip this one and find something else, but if you do end up picking it up, I hope you love it!

Thanks you to Netgalley and Boldwoods Books for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely brilliant

Definitely one of my favourite books this year.

How can you not adore a love story set in Paris?

I love Ren and Sacha and their friendship throughout the story. There is so much humour and love in the story too it’s the perfect feel good romance.

Ren and Sacha have very different backgrounds, but opposites attract. Ren grew up rich living in the Ritz, while Sacha lived in a rough neighborhood in Paris. When Ren’s engagement ends, she wants to spend time in Paris, but her grandmother wants her home in London. When she manages to knock Sacha off his bike, she feels responsible and wants to care for him. She sees an opportunity to show her grandmother she’s moved on and has Sacha pose as her new bf.

This book will make you want to hop the first flight available to France! What’s more romantic than Paris at Christmas? This is good if you like fake dating stories!

Thank you so much to @bookandtonic, #Boldwoodbooks and Leonie for my gifted ebook!

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for the e-ARC.

I've read two books that had their story set in Paris in a row and the city of love has never lose its charm when it comes to love and rom-com! This is a story of an influencer and company heiress in distress, forced to came out of her comfort zone to mend her broken heart over a failed engagement and attempting to live lowkey and break free from the company and her strict grandmother. She "accidentally" met a charming mysterious stranger--a man, who comes from very different background from her. They tangled on some fake relationship deals, wandering around Paris--enjoying the city and its history, and trying hard not to fall for each other because the whole world seems like against them. I love how heartfelt and genuine this story and the characters are, especiallly Sacha and his family! God, i love how he's so full of poetry historical fact that he can blurted out anytime anywhere., while Ren is a literal sunshine and such a brave female character trying to find herself outside the framework her grandmother and company thrust upon her. A man who loves to read and a woman who loves happy ending story! They're such adorable couples and I can't help to roots for them--I was so patient waiting for the sacred 'L' words to come out by either of these two, because they didn't thought and say it lightly. Overall this is a feel-good, charming, hilarious, and festive read for me.

Very much wanted wanted to like this but I just found it fell short. The relationship between the characters didn’t feel natural, there were large parts that felt poorly explained and there was a lot of switching between French and English with only some of it explained.

I thought Sacha was a great character and his background and history but Ren was meh

The scene setting was wonderful but for a Christmas book it didn’t make me feel festive in the slightest.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I liked the plot and the ideas but I struggled to warm to the main characters - Ren especially. Sacha was much more interesting and I liked him a bit more. The writing was good but the pacing was a little slow and I felt like something was missing and that I had come in on the middle of a plot somehow.

There was some decent character development evident but overall I struggled a little to stay interested as I felt it was a little predictable.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a heartwarming, fun Christmas novel.

What's not to love with this book.. RomCom, set in Paris and at Christmas

I loved Ren and Sacha and how they are opposites attract

This book just was not for me. I just found this to be a very generic romance book. I have just read so many other books like this one so this did not stand out to me.

Ren (Irena) is spending some time in Paris when she has a very dangerous meet cute with Sacha. Ren is a heiress while Sacha is a history professor. Unfortunately, Ren is directed to return to London due to news of her breakup going very public. It's only natural that when Ren needs a reason to stay in Paris, she convinces Sacha to pose as her boyfriend. However, they only have a very short time (21 days) in which they can spend time together.

This is a slow burn with closed door implied sex. Ren and Sacha were beautifully written characters that you just wanted them to be happy and admit to falling in love with each other. I loved Ren's growth as she became someone who no longer felt the need for public attention and lavish goods, but instead understood the richness of experiencing the world and understanding Sacha's love for books and history.

I especially loved the incorporation of the french language. It helped make the story feel even that more romantic & beautiful.

Huge thank you to NetGalley & Boldwood Books for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Ren and Sacha meet in Paris. These opposites attract, but Ren's time in Paris is coming to an end, so where it leave them?
a great read.

I think this is my favorite Leonie Mack book so far! This story had just the right mixture of what I was looking for... typical RomCom tropes, predictable but ever so cute and Christmas! The descriptions of Paris were so vivid and now there are many parts of Paris and smaller markets that I would love to visit especially around Christmas time, but without Sacha as my guide my experiences probably would not even come close to Ren's. I really enjoyed this story with a few Disney references and plot and characters that kept me invested right until the end.

Description 🔖

An heiress to a fortune, Ren’s home-from-home is the Ritz, while the handsome and brooding Sacha has grown up in Paris’s less salubrious suburbs. So when an accident brings them together, romance seems an unlikely outcome.

When Ren’s society engagement reaches a very public end, Irena’s over-protective grandmother wants her home in London. Ren needs an excuse to stay in Paris, and so after some persuasion, Sacha agrees to pose as her new boyfriend. But only for the twenty-one days Ren’s grandmother has allowed her to nurse her broken heart before heading home to face the music.

Over the course of three weeks, Ren realises the world outside her exclusive bubble is more beautiful than she could have imagined. While Sacha reluctantly begins to see the goodness of the woman behind the wealth. When their time is up, will Ren want to return to her gilded cage, and will Sacha be able to let go of the woman he’s been ‘pretending’ to fall in love with…

General Thoughts 🤔

This book was all of the loveliness and light heartedness that I was expecting and wanting it to be. It was a bit of a mix between meet cute, fake relationship and forbidden love which written down sounds like it could be a bit much, but I thought that it worked well. It was very easy to get carried away with Ren and Sacha’s relationship and want them to get their happy ending.

Characters 👫👭👬

Ren and Sacha were quite naturally the main characters in the book, however there were plenty of other characters that I fell in love with along the way. I instantly liked Joseph and I really liked that he knew from the very beginning that this unlikely pairing was going to end in love. I didn’t take the same liking to Ren’s Grandmother. She was very hard faced and cold. Considering that Ren was all of the living family she had left, she wasn’t too concerned about her well being and feelings.

Sacha was so easy to love, it was completely understandable that Ren fell head over heels. He had all of the attractive traits of a rough around the edges Parisian man whilst maintaining a very sensitive and caring side of his personality. I didn’t think that I would like Ren at the very beginning as I didn’t think she would have the courage to follow her own heart. However she grew in strength as the story progressed and I ended up feeling quite proud of her by the end.

Writing Style ✍️

I liked that the story was uncomplicated, easy to read and I was able to switch my brain off and indulge in the romance. I can sometimes find romance books a little frustrating as they can be unrealistic. I’m not saying that everything in this book felt like real life, but it was definitely a dreamy tale that I was able to get behind without feeling super cringey.

Having read the acknowledgements, I understand that the author has spent some time living in Paris and it certainly showed through her writing. The scene setting of the different areas of Paris was great and made me feel transported to all the different places Ren and Sacha found themselves exploring.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I’ve not read a Leonie Mack book before, but after reading this one, I think I’ll definitely reach for another the next time I want to feel all the mushy feels. I’m really grateful to be included on the blog tour for this heart warming book. The timing couldn’t be better for me as I am off to Paris next weekend so this story did a fantastic job of setting all of my dreamy, happy ending expectations. If you’re in the mood to be romantically swept off your feet in Paris, then definitely cuddle up with this book and live Ren and Sacha’s dreamy romance through the pages.