The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted: A Novel [Kindle Edition]

Bridget Asher (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Heidi is still reeling from the death of her husband, Henry, two years earlier. Heidi can�t bring herself to return to the bakery she and Henry ran, and her son, Abbott, is consumed with grief, which is manifesting itself through his obsessive-compulsive behavior. Heidi�s mother believes she knows the perfect cure and sends them, along with Heidi�s gloomy and sullen 16-year-old niece Charlotte, hiding her own secrets and miseries, to their family home in Provence, where Heidi hasn�t been since she was 13. The house has been in Heidi�s family for generations and has long been viewed as a living, breathing force that brings miracles. Heidi is initially tasked with the repairs and upgrades to the house, but it, along with her elderly neighbor and her neighbor�s son, starts to repair Heidi and Abbott and Charlotte and bring them closer together to form a new family unit. A tearjerker of a novel for both foodies and fans of tightly knit family stories. --Hilary Hatton

Review

"Fans of Under the Tuscan Sun will adore this impossibly romantic read."—People magazine

“Unabashedly romantic and unafraid of melancholy, Asher’s book is a real charmer about a Provencal house that casts spells over the lovelorn.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
"Readers who enjoy...Lolly Winston’s Good Grief and Jane Green’s The Beach House or travel-induced transformation books like Frances Mayes’s Under the Tuscan Sun and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love will find common themes in Asher’s engaging third novel...and become quickly invested in the lives of the deftly drawn characters."—Library Journal

"Like a dip in a cool pool, Bridget Asher’s The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted is a refreshing escape."--Campus Circle

“An enchantment of a book, woven out of Bridget Asher’s tenderness toward her characters, her love of the French countryside, and a gentle faith in possibilities. It held me spellbound from the first word to the last, when I put it aside with a sigh of both regret and deepest satisfaction….I madly, madly, madly loved this book!”
—BARBARA O’NEAL, author of How to Bake a Perfect Life

“The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted will have you canceling dinner plans, staying up all hours and flat-out ignoring your family, just so you can keep reading...An absorbing, beautifully written tale about life, death, love, food, and the magic of new possibilities.”
—J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN, author of Commencement and Maine

"[A] great read...This book was difficult to put down."--The Pilot (NC)

"Will touch readers long after the last page is read. The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted would make an excellent book discussion pick or a perf...

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 581 KB
• Publisher: Bantam (March 29, 2011)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004HFRJMQ
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,583 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A tender-hearted love story, March 29, 2011

By 

L. Gondelman "Lori's Reading Corner" (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted: A Novel (Paperback)

Heidi has a gift for making beautiful pieces of art in her bakery. She is a well-known, talented pastry chef. But she has lost her desire to create. Along with her car keys, lids to the toothpaste and jelly, friends, checkbooks - and the most important thing in her life, her husband. It's been two years since Henry died in a car accident, and Heidi still hasn't found her way back to the land of the living. She's not sure if she ever will, or even if she wants to. But she knows that she needs to, if not for herself, than for her son Abbott. A little boy who loves to hear "Henry stories", worries a great deal about his mom, and has developed some OCD tendencies in the wake of his father's death.

Up until her teens, Heidi would spend each summer at her family home in Provence, along with her mother and sister. There they would laugh, play with the boys next door, enjoy the simple life, and hear the stories of the home. They heard of the magic wonders that occur in this beautiful spot, the love that is found, and the miraculous healing of the heart. They hear of the great fire that literally stopped at their doorstep, and of their great grandparents, who could never have children - that is until they visited this beloved spot and were then blessed with the family they dreamed of, yet had given up on. Then one summer, Heidi's mom went to Provence alone, needing time to sort through some personal issues of her own and hoping the magic healing powers of the house will soothe her aching heart.

Despite the joy of her sister's wedding, Heidi still cannot get passed her grief. She tries to put her pain aside to celebrate with her sister, but arriving late for the bridesmaid's toast doesn't help matters. However, she does feel useful when helping to deal with Charlotte, her sister's soon-to-be step-daughter. A sixteen-year-old young woman struggling with being a teen, her father getting remarried, finding her own identity, and keeping a secret of her own. When a fire occurs at the Provence house Heidi's mother is beside herself. That house means so much to her. But not as much as her daughter and grandson's happiness. So along with Heidi's sister, they concoct a plan for Heidi, Abbott, and Charlotte to go to France to oversee the renovations from the fire, and to maybe find some of the magic that the house possesses.

Heidi arrives in Provence and immediately gets off to a rocky start. Not only is their rental car broken into and all their possessions stolen, but then it breaks down. Julien, the son of their neighbor and one of the boys Heidi played with as a child comes to their rescue. There definitely seems to be an attraction between the two, but both are dealing with tremendous amounts of pain, and neither one is looking for love. Can either one move past their hurt and move on with their lives, experiencing love, friendship, tears, and laughter for the first time in a long time? Will the secrets that are revealed bring this family closer or tear them apart? Will anyone experience the magic this house presumes to possess?

The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted is a story full o f hope, promise, and the love one feels for someone even after they are gone. It's about families finding each other, about secrets being told, and about coming home again. It's a story about believing in oneself, hope for the future, coming together, and dealing with the past. The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted is a tender-hearted love story that tackles moving on from grief and opening up to love again.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful story..., April 11, 2011

By 

Darlene "from Peeking Between the Pages" (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted: A Novel (Paperback)

The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted by Bridget Asher is a beautifully written novel that encompasses grief and life, love, food and can be best described as charming and full of hope. For me, this novel is what I class a comfort read. I started it and was immediately taken by the story and just couldn't put it down. Finishing this book for me was really quite sad; I was not ready to leave the lives of the people within its pages.

Heidi is still trying to get over the death of her husband Henry who passed two years ago. Thankfully she has her son Abbott who pretty much forces her to carry on but he has problems of his own - his grief is coming out through compulsive behaviors. She can't seem to take care of the bakery she and her husband owned and hasn't baked in ages which was something she always loved - creating her pastries. She just can't seem to move forward because she can't give up her past with Henry and her hope that he's still coming back.

Her mother tells Heidi that every woman needs a lost summer for herself. It just so happens that they have a family home in the French countryside where her mother had her very own lost summer when Heidi and her sister were young. This is where her mother feels Heidi, Abbott, and her niece Charlotte should go to get away for a while and remodel the old house. Heidi leaves for Provence with the kids and while there she begins to open herself up more to life and living while, at the same time, learning some long kept secrets about her own mother that leads her to know and understand her better.

I really liked Heidi. Her grief and her struggles to wade through it made her such a realistic character to me. I liked how she encouraged her son and spoke of her husband often with him. In Provence, even while she was battling against love, she was opening herself up to it. I could feel her pain, her sorrow, and then later her happiness and faith in a better future. While Heidi was my favorite, the other characters were great as well - Charlotte was hilarious as was Heidi's mom. Abbott was pretty cute with his obsessive behaviors and trying to get past them. As always it doesn't hurt to have a Frenchman like Julien, who sounded like a piece of heaven in a gorgeous package.

The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted by Bridget Asher is so much about trusting enough to open yourself up to love again after suffering a great heartbreak. This book is a beautiful romance and new beginnings. It's about learning to live again and let's face it, could there be a better place to do that in than France? I loved the descriptions of the food and the area - I could almost feel myself there (well I was definitely wishing I was!). It's a fairly long novel at over 400 pages and not once did I feel like I wanted it to end. As a matter of a fact I kept checking to see how far I had to go and began to dread it ending. I was enjoying it that much. I laughed and I cried - for me that makes this novel a favorite! If you're a fan of foodie books and especially the ones where someone travels to another country, then I think you'd love this book as much as I did!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A bit of a struggle to get through, August 11, 2011

By 

M. Robb (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted: A Novel (Paperback)

Well-written but the story was incredibly depressing for the first half of the book - and then it was just incredibly predictable. I would not recommend this unless the reader enjoys a really slowly-paced story with very little meat to it.