20190720_140923.jpgToday I’m ecstatic to bring you a review of Meet Me in Monaco by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb! I feel like we need a drumroll before I get started because THIS is my most-anticipated read of summer, and I can’t wait to share my thoughts with you.

Earlier this year, I won a signed ARC on instagram from the authors. Have I told you how much I love each of these authors individually and as a writing team?! If you haven’t read The Last Christmas in Paris, their first masterpiece, you are missing out.

I also want to thank Kathleen Carter and William Morrow for sending me a finished copy. Both copies are on my shelf, side-by-side, in all their beauty.

My Thoughts:

Meet Me in Monaco is a story about the romance and wedding of famous Hollywood actress Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier. I knew next to nothing about Grace Kelly, other than she married a prince, so everything about this book enthralled me from the start.

The story begins in Cannes for the film festival, where Grace slides into the Duval family perfume shop to avoid paparazzi. The press representative she’s avoiding is James Henderson, who later befriends the owner of the shop, Sophie Duval, while Grace also forms a bond with Sophie that lasts more than thirty years.

It was so fascinating to view Grace through James and Sophie’s eyes, as the book is narrated by each of them in alternating chapters. It was also alluring to watch James and Sophie’s relationship build.

Meet Me in Monaco is a story of Grace Kelly and that most exciting time in her life, as she falls in love and married Prince Rainier. But it’s also a story about friendship and heartbreak. The wedding is a showstopper, and it was fascinating to be on the sidelines for all that it entailed.

As ever, Heather Webb and Hazel Gaynor have seamlessly co-authored another beautiful and glorious book. All my anticipation has been worth it, and I’m so grateful to know more about Grace Kelly’s life and this compelling time in history.

I received a complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.

About the Book:

Set in the 1950s against the backdrop of Grace Kelly’s whirlwind romance and glamourous wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco, New York Times bestselling author Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb take the reader on an evocative sun-drenched journey along the Côte d’Azur in this page-turning novel of passion, fate, and second-chances.

Movie stars and paparazzi flock to Cannes for the glamorous film festival, but Grace Kelly, the biggest star of all, wants only to escape from the flash-bulbs. When struggling perfumer Sophie Duval shelters Miss Kelly in her boutique, fending off a persistent British press photographer, James Henderson, a bond is forged between the two women and sets in motion a chain of events that stretches across thirty years of friendship, love, and tragedy.

James Henderson cannot forget his brief encounter with Sophie Duval. Despite his guilt at being away from his daughter, he takes an assignment to cover the wedding of the century, sailing with Grace Kelly’s wedding party on the SS Constitution from New York. In Monaco, as wedding fever soars and passions and tempers escalate, James and Sophie—like Princess Grace—must ultimately decide what they are prepared to give up for love.

Have you read Meet Me in Monaco, or is it on your TBR? Have you red any books by these two authors? Happy Reading! ~ Jennifer THR