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ALL EXPENSES PAID (Fact meets Fiction) [Kindle Edition]

Helen Ducal (Author), Simon Birch (Illustrator)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews) |
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Product Description

Product Description

How a simple advert can change your life...for good.

THE ADVERT:
Six months granny-sitting in the South of France
Separate en-suite accommodation. Ideally 40+ and non smoker.

ME:
Laura Bennett, been divorced longer than married.
No dependents. Lease just ran out on my rented cottage. Sales job going nowhere.

So, I decided to go for it. I mean what could be simpler than looking after an 82 year old English lady? I had visions of gentle strolls to the boulangerie and compulsory siestas. But this was before I met Betty. She looked like everybody’s favourite grandmother until Jean- Louis arrived to pick her up on his Kawasaki 1200!

Imagine Samantha from Sex and the City, team her up with Rose from The Golden Girls and you have ALL EXPENSES PAID.

“Engaging, fun, unpredictable, fresh, original, silly, and just plain old enjoyable. Cracking idea and neatly executed. All I need is a deck chair and some sun and I'm sorted!”ANDREW MORGAN

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Helen Ducal
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Customer Reviews

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
The essence and the fun of this book are encapsulated in a couple of sentences from the blurb. The writer goes to France to take on the `simple' task of looking after `an 82 year old English lady' who looks `like everybody's favourite grandmother until Jean-Louis arrives to pick her up on his Kawasaki 1200'. She discovers later that this old lady, Betty, when she heard that her daughter planned to ship her off to Brittany to stay with her other daughter, `decided to have a slight stroke'.
The text is marked throughout with wit and humour that range from the gentle to the (almost) outrageous. Ducal's characters (included herself as narrator) are beautifully drawn, not with any ostentation or wordy pretentiousness, but through observation of what they say and do. (The deceptive simplicity of `she decided to have a slight stroke' is an example of the sort of economy I mean.). Ducal and the irrepressible Betty make a terrific couple. They also make a nonsense of the preconceptions about age and competence.
This was written by someone who loves life and knows how to live it. Unlike other British writers who've produced self-aware, often patronising books about life in France, Ducal knows what is meant by joie de vivre and contributes her own take on it. She and Betty delight in what the country has to offer and she uses her writer's gift of observation to identify and select the elements - large and small - that make up its attractive reality. Her voice is clear, direct, inviting as she celebrates her own and Betty's absorption into French ways. It's great fun to read and, at this price, a steal.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Enjoyable 9 May 2012
By Jayjay
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
An enjoyable light read, with nicely drawn characters of believable wackiness. I wanted to find out what happened to them, so had to keep reading. Worth buying.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Steve B
Format:Kindle Edition
Part of the enjoyment that I got out of reading this book was trying to judge what was fact and what was fiction, which I feel was part of the authors intention. The great thing about mixing the two is that it sometimes makes for a far interesting story, which was so true for 'All Expenses Paid'.

Girls will be girls no matter how old they are, so when you mix two spicy ladies with quite an age gap then it makes for an interesting cocktail and cocktails were not the only drinks served during their adventures.

Helen Ducal has managed to make you feel as though you are a voyeur, peeking over her shoulder as she encounters various men upon her travels. Her openness and honesty about her feelings towards the opposite sex is certainly very refreshing, but you still have to make your own mind up whether it was fact or fiction!

The novel was set mainly in France which was why I downloaded it, but these two ladies could have had fun wherever the story was set. I really enjoyed reading 'All Expenses Paid' and it was extremely well written. If you do not enjoy it then I think you just might have just passed your sell by date, unlike Laura and Betty who are still teenagers at heart.

ALL EXPENSES PAID (Fact meets Fiction)
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