Thursday, March 5, 2015

(R) The Frenchman by Lesley Young


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Fleur Smithers has traveled to France to spend time the birth mother who gave her up.  One night, she meets Louis Messette, star player on an international rugby team.  Immediately attracted to each other, she takes him home only to have him reject her when he realizes she's still a virgin.  But he cannot stay away from her - they quickly fall back into each other's arms... but with stipulations.  The main one being Fleur must keep their relationship a secret.  Confused but willing, Fleur agrees.  She accepts a necklace of the family crest, a fleur-de-lis, as a symbol of their love.  Soon, Fleur is caught between her biological mother who happens to be a high-ranking officer of the French Police Force and her lover, whose family she discovers is criminal royalty.  Fleur's mother discovers Louis is her boyfriend and is enraged.  Storming into his apartment, she quickly arrests Louis and his brother, Georges.  When Georges is charged with drug trafficking, Louis tries to make Fleur realize her mother is not the upstanding police officer she appears to be.  As an American in a foreign country, a girl finding her mother for the first time, and a woman who's heart is fighting to be heard, who does she believe?

I LOVED this story!  It took me a few chapters to get into but once I was, I was hooked.  I love how Fleur talks - she's a true American.  Many of the things she would say are things that, I feel, many Americans would say when they are found in a foreign country with foreign laws.  "I'm an American in France, what do I know?"  You really start to feel her confusion as the book goes on.  She knows Louis is hiding something and when she finds out, she's torn, being the daughter of a police inspector and all.  But she loves Louis - all dominating, confusing, loving parts of him.  As I read the book, I often questioned how Louis treated her but when you realize that Louis is also torn between protecting his family and protecting the woman he loves, you understand why he does the things he does.  And the very end... *swoon*  You will never question how much Louis loves Fleur when you reach the end.  One of the best endings of a confused set of lovers ever.  I cannot wait to read more by this author in her upcoming The Australian.

ARC was provided by the editor in exchange for my honest review.