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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fun romance, June 25, 2001
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.
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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
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.
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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
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.
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