The Feasting Season

I love books. I love to read and be entertained and whisked away to other worlds and alternate realities. I also love all things French, well, almost all things. This year especially I've been on a mission to read anything and everything that is set in France. Up until recently I've been pleased with my reading choices. This last book I picked up, however, is just not doing anything for me (except making me want to rip my hair out or tear the pages out). It is titled The Feasting Season by Nancy Coons, and follows the life of an American woman married to a die-hard British man while they live in an old house in the French countryside with their two young children and dog, Gerard. The woman is a writer specializing in history and is given the opportunity to go on an "adventure" to tell a story of France's history. She is assigned to work with a hippie French photographer and the rest of the story takes off from there. Or doesn't. I thought the novel was going to be about her travels and pieces of French history and culture all webbed into one magnificent French story that would leave me smiling and dreaming of my beloved France. Not. Even. Close. Yes, there are details of French cuisine and some culture, but mostly the novel focuses on the love affair that transpires between the woman and the photographer. Gag me, please. I love a good love story, but this is just trashy and reaching for something that isn't there. The writing is poor at best and is very difficult to trudge through. I feel like I am experiencing a continuous rainy day when I read this. But, as some of you know or would have guessed, there is something bred into me that prevents me from discontinuing a novel I have started. I must finish. So now you have to bear the brunt of my dissatisfaction with a novel that could have been truly great but fell short. Ah well, c'est la vie, non?