Tout Sweet

Following in the footsteps of Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence, Tout Sweet is now a classic of the French memoir genre, cataloguing the disasters–and triumphs–of a former newspaper fashion editor, who waves goodbye to her glamorous city lifestyle and extensive shoe collection, to renovate a run-down house in rural France.

Acquiring a host of new friends and unsuitable suitors, she learns that true happiness can be found in the simplest of things–a bike ride through the countryside on a summer evening, or a kir or three in a neighbour's courtyard.

This much-loved book is perfect for anyone who dreams of travelling or downshifting to France. From Paris via the Ile de Ré, to her village house in the Poitou-Charente, Wheeler takes you on an inspiring, laugh-out-loud journey through the land of the long lunch, with its sunflower fields, picturesque villages and auberges filled with ex-pat Brits behaving badly.