Last Time I Saw Paris [Paperback]

Elizabeth Adler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2002

Lara Lewis's marriage is fizzling. Her surgeon husband is far too busy for her - too busy even to go on their long-planned second honeymoon to France and Lara suspects that he's backed out of it because he's found another woman to replace her. Then she meets Dan Holland, earthy, unsophisticated, California-handsome and a good guy, and takes him on the second honeymoon that was meant to have saved her marriage. Except that Dan doesn't know this. What follows is a madcap, romantic adventure that begins with missed connections and lost luggage, then fights and making up, losing each other - and finding love. Trouble comes when the lover finds out he is the stand-in for her husband on the second honeymoon - and then her husband shows up in Paris and wants her back.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lara Lewis, the befuddled protagonist of this coming-of-middle-age novel, is a curvy, knockout 45-year-old, unaware of her beauty. All she notices is her aging, not her assets, and it doesn't help that her snooty doctor husband, Bill, is probably having an affair with his pert, younger blonde colleague. He blows off a planned second honeymoon in Paris to go to China with Melissa, ostensibly on a medical mission. Devastated, Lara goes to their beach house to think. While there, she discovers repairs that need to be done and calls contractor Dan, who turns out to be a 32-year-old Adonis who appreciates her just as she is. As repairs continue, they get acquainted and find a mutual unspoken attraction hovering between them. When that passion is acted upon, Lara feels she's found something that has always been missing in her life, and with the concerned blessings of her friends, decides to ask Dan to go on the Paris trip, but doesn't tell him it was to be her second honeymoon. The whole trip reminds her of her time there with Bill, but the passage of time dispels the gold-tinted lie she'd believed in it seems that Bill was always a jerk, and she was just too young and starry-eyed to see it. But will she let her history with her husband, the father of her children, keep her from dumping the fool for someone who loves and values her? The popular Adler (In a Heartbeat; All or Nothing) gets the dynamics of a new relationship pitch-perfect, even if her heroine seems too na‹ve to be true and her hero too perfect. But it's the detailed, realistic description of the trip to France airline delays and hotel reservation mishaps included that makes her latest great vicarious vacation reading.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Another Before and After tale? Fortyish Lara is so vexed when her preoccupied husband backs out of a second honeymoon in Paris they had planned that she impulsively asks the guy who is fixing her deck to come with her instead.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Coronet (April 4, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340822058
• ISBN-13: 978-0340822050
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,706,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elizabeth Adler is a self-confessed romantic, a travel addict and a foodie, all of which she brings to the reader in her novels, along with a tough thrust of suspense and an unfolding mystery that keeps you on your toes. Elizabeth has lived in many countries and when she's not writing spends time discovering even more places to bring to you, with her husband, Richard - still in love after all these years - as are the characters featured in her past three novels, Mac Reilly the Malibu PI and Sunny Alvarez, his lover and side kick. You have to read about them to know them! Elizabeth lives in California and has the ability to take you to all those romantic places she knows so well, Capri, Venice, Tuscany, St. Tropez, Monte Carlo, and of course, Malibu. You will feel you are there, with her, sitting on that Italian terrace, sipping that coffee, smelling the delicious food, savoring the heat and the sunshine and the mystery unfolding for you. Elizabeth is five-three and wishes she were taller, blind as a bat without her glasses that anyway she is too vain to wear, and at 128 lbs till thinking about that diet. She has one daughter, Anabelle who is married to rock musician Eric Avery and two kitties, the Siamese, Sweet Pea who rules the household, and an adorable black cat Sunny.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun romance, June 25, 2001

By 

Amy Leemon (North Fond du Lac, WI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Last Time I Saw Paris (Hardcover)

Lara Lewis has her second honeymoon all planned - airline tickets, reservations at hotels and restaurants, car rentals - all at the same places where she and her husband, Bill, visited on their first honeymoon. There is only one problem - her husband cancels out on her and takes a business trip with his young associate doctor.

After talking with "the Girlfriends", Lara decides to go anyway. But then she impulsively invites Dan, the younger man who is repairing her deck, to go with her. He does and what an adventure it is!

From overbooked flights, hotel reservations not held, bad weather and "someone" not being able to read a map correctly and all the other mishaps that can happen on a vacation to wonderful finds when they just "go with the flow", its a great read for us.

The author visited all the places in France that are in the book and it shows. It's a wonderful, imaginative escape with some surprises on the way.

Pick it up and let some wonderful writing take you to France and a great adventure.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Is Paris Lovelier the Second Time Around?, January 22, 2003

By 

Nancy R. Katz "NancyK18" (NJ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Last Time I Saw Paris (Mass Market Paperback)

I recently read and loved Summer in Tuscany by Elizabeth Adler. Shortly afterwards I came across The Last Time I Saw Paris by the same author and while I enjoyed this book it wasn't nearly as good as Summer in Tuscany. Whereas Summer in Tuscany was a fun-filled read which almost served as a travelogue of the region, The Last Time I Saw Paris had a rather silly premise and didn't describe Paris nearly as interestingly as the former book.

After almost 25 years of marriage, Lara plans a trip to Paris to celebrate this milestone anniversary. But more than this it is an attempt to revitalize her failing marriage. Remembering back to their honeymoon plans every detail exactly the same as it was during their honeymoon hoping they can recreate those fun-free and happy days. Or at least this is the way Lara chooses to remember them. But Lara's husband has a surprise for her. Not only doesn't he want to recreate their honeymoon 25 years later, he no longer wants to be married to Lara preferring the company of a much younger colleague. Licking her wounds, Lara retreats to their beach house where she meets the contractor they previously hired for some odd jobs. He is young, good looking and Lara is immediately attracted to him. During a hasty moment Lara invites him to accompany her on this trip and he accepts. As one can imagine these two are now in for some very madcap and hilarious moments as everything that can happen to tourists happens to them. They arrive in Paris to find their luggage is missing, they have no reservations in a small French town and during a violent rainstorm their car breaks down. In a rather predictable plot, Lara and Don find themselves beginning a relationship in the city of love. And things really become interesting when Lara's husband reconsiders and flies to Paris to spend the rest of the trip with her. Only then does Lara remembers her honeymoon the way it really was and not how she imagined.

This is not an altogether unpleasant read. It is a light fast paced book best suited for a vacation or time spent on the beach. For travelers to foreign cities it will remind them of their own travel escapades, wondrous sights and events as well as the disastrous moments. Ultimately I did enjoy this book and would recommend reading it. Be sure and read Summer in Tuscany too for a mouth watering reading experience.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A disappointed effort, 2 1/2 stars, really..., August 21, 2001

By 

A. BROCK "torysmama" (Yorktown, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Last Time I Saw Paris (Hardcover)

I bought and read this book on a whim, as it is out of the usual realm of fiction that I read, but it came highly recommended and so I gave it a try. At first, the novel held my attention. I read the first 100 pages in one sitting and enjoyed them. The plot line was interesting...woman turns 45, discovers husband has taken lover, and so she seeks comfort in the strong and sexy arms of her 32 year old deck repairman. Simple enough, but still believable. It was in the next 200 hundred pages, that the book lost me. The protagonist, Lara, and her new, younger lover, Dan, take off to Paris, and for Lara, this is the much dreamed about 2nd Honeymoon that she had taken a year to plan for her husband and herself. Lara and Dan find themsleves visiting many of the old haunts of the original honeymoon, without Dan's knowledge of this fact, and much to the misery of Lara. Simply stated, this book read like a tour guide to France, and as someone who hasn't had the pleasure to visit the country, it couldn't hold my attention. I found myslef skimming many of the overbearing details, much too many in French BTW, just to get to the basic plot line. In my opinion, if the author had just stuck with writing a work of fiction instead of trying to weave so many details of the places AND people AND food that she encountered while in France, I could have given this book a much higher rating. Instead, I felt like at least 1/4 of it was spent discussing French food and wine, while another 1/4 discribed the French countryside.