Another fantastic feel-good, laugh out loud, warm your cockles novel by Sandy!

After making a terrible mistake and sleeping with her flatmate, who then confessed his undying love for her, Cat is now on run! Booking herself on to a European bus tour holiday to get away, she certainly doesn’t expect what’s coming to her!!

Making some fabulous new friends, her ‘bus besties’, she sets of on an amazing, wine and food fuelled break away with some awwww, OMG and laugh out loud moments!! Sleeping in some far from glamorous places, seeing some beautiful sights and reliving memories, Cat gets more than she bargained for when they visit Paris. Nicknames the ‘love bus’ Cat is set on not being sucked in – but will she be able to avoid the ‘l word’?! YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK!

I absolutely loved this. Perfect to read in my garden in the sun, I literally felt like I was on holiday with Cat! Her friends were my friends, I was seeing the sights with her and having the best time – I was just sad I didn’t get to drink the copious amounts of wine she consumes!

Cat is a fantastic character – determined not to ever fall in love again, she just wants some fun. But realises that maybe her feelings run deeper than she first thought. Her bus besties are amazing – I just wanted to cuddle Lou! She’s such a warm and amazing woman, and Dani and Jae had me in stitches with their escapades. And Craig – the wonderful little bro! And then there is one character who will remain nameless, until you’ve read the book, who I feel head over heels in love with! It was also great to check in with Cat’s sister Sarah (who you meet and fall in love with in Sandy’s other books!).

I’ve said in my previous reviews and I’ll say it again. I love Sandy’s writing style. If I decided to write a book, it would be like this! It flows so easily and at times you feel like the character is talking directly to you. It sucks you in and you genuinely hop on board the journey – all the sights, sounds, smells and adventures come to life.

I absolutely loved this. I’m not giving anymore details because I don’t want to ruin it for you! But just know that I smiled all the way through, wanted to kick characters up the bum, join in on their adventures and find out what happened next!! This is the perfect book for buying yourself at the moment – sit in the garden in the sunshine, with this and you’ll have a wonderful day! Highly recommended by me!

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for asking me to read and review.
This story was a wonderful read.
It is well written with some great characters and as a reader you feel you are right there with them. The plot draws you in and keeps you turning those pages.
A brilliant, heartwarming read.

This is definitely a love story, both for Catherine and all the cities she visits. I’ve finished it with massive wanderlust and a list of places I want to visit or revisit, but also feeling like I’ve been on a journey with C and her bus besties. A lovely story, and great premise, a wonderful summer read.

Could not connect with this book as I found the heroine brash and utterly juvenile for someone supposed to be thirty-five. The mindset and conflict felt very YA and not grown-up at all and it was a lot of going around to get to a conclusion only in the very last pages

This was a great book about a group of people who end up sharing a coach trip holiday around Europe. They each have their reasons for coming on the holiday and take each other under their wings! Although I'm not sure I'd want to stay in the places that they stayed- with shared rooms/bathrooms etc , it made for very interesting reads, wondering what the new resort would offer.
The tour guide seems to have a headmistress approach to the trip which doesn't sit well with all the girls.
It was a lovely book to read on lock down- making you think ahead to all the places you'd love to be able to visit as soon as lock down is lifted

Review: 2.5/5 stars

After Cat Parsons makes the mistake one evening by sleeping with one of her flatmates after three bottles of wine, she signs herself up for a two-week-long European bus tour with a bunch of strangers to get away from his declaration of love.

The premise for this sounded like a great start to a fun rom/com story! There was so much potential to develop this story more but, for me, it fell a little flat. I loved the different locations that Cat and the bus tour go on and I wish there was a bit more about the cities rather than the somewhat cliche and cheesy dialogue between the characters. Her group of friends didn’t seem to have a lot of depth to them and, to be honest, were often all quite annoying and one-dimensional. The exposition of stories from the characters felt a bit random and out of nowhere, and some of the experiences felt so random yet super specific that it felt like they must have actually happened to the author or someone she knows.

I did like the different cities that were mentioned in the book, as it allowed me to both reminisce on my own trips there or dream of visiting them one day. It was interesting to see what aspects of the cities were chosen to be highlighted in this story. I’ve known a couple of friends who have gone on similar types of trips in the last few years and it does look incredibly fun, but also exhausting – which I did get a bit of a sense of while reading about Cat’s adventures with her traveling companions.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an advanced copy of “That Night in Paris” by Sandy Barker. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

This story was a fun travel romp through some of Europe’s most notable cities. I enjoyed the travel aspect of the book especially since I haven’t been to a majority of the places Cat visited. I also found the tour’s packed schedule relatable as I had a France and England two week trip in college so I can only imagine the frenzy of fitting even more countries into such a short time frame.

The story starts with Cat running from a one night stand with her roommate and ending up on a two week tour she books last minute. On the tour, she meets a set of interesting new friends and learns more about their lives and the things they’re also running from. I found all these side characters to be very intriguing and so felt a little let down when they’re sort of ditched at the end with no resolution to all the things they were going through. I don’t know if the author has plans to explore these stories in later books but I would have liked some closure there.

There were some technical things that bothered me. With so many characters, I wanted more dialogue tags to indicate who was speaking particularly in group scenes. It got confusing to follow along especially early in the story when the reader is just getting to know the characters.

Jean-Luc made the whole book for me honestly. He was so Swoony and I adored him. Once he was introduced, I was just constantly waiting for him to be back on the page again. My one complaint (and this is largely a personal preference) was that the sex scene felt like a let down. It was very minimal when I was prepared to keep swooning over Jean-Luc. But truly that is a personal preference of heat level as some readers like more or less steaminess in their sex scenes.

While Cat was the main character, I often found myself struggling to root for her. For starters, she kept constantly using the phrase “lady parts” which got annoying after the second time. Heroines definitely don’t need to be perfect, but I felt like Cat needed something more to her character. There were glimpses of who she could be as she got to know and befriend the other tourists, but those moments were lost in Cat’s often selfish behaviors. As much as I adored Jean-Luc, I struggled at times to root for him and Cat ending up together as he just seemed too good for her.

3/5 stars

Something about not being allowed to leave my house makes me want to run away into all sorts of literary escapes. And lucky for me, that’s exactly what That Night in Paris promised!


The story
Note to self: don’t sleep with your flatmate after a curry and three bottles of wine… especially if he’s secretly in love with you and wants you to meet his mum.

Cat Parsons is on the run. She doesn’t do relationships. After ten years of singlehood even the hint of the ‘L’ word is enough to get Cat packing her bags and booking herself onto a two-week holiday.

A European bus tour feels like a stroke of genius to dodge awkward conversations at home. But little does Cat realise that the first stop will be Paris, the city of love itself.

Joined by new friends, Cat has got two weeks, eight countries and a hell of a lot of wine ahead of her. As they discover hidden treasures and the camaraderie of life on the road, will Cat find a new way of looking at love?

The opinion

I have to admit, I struggled a bit when trying to formulate what I thought about this book.

On the one hand, the plot was quite promising – a European bus tour, rediscovering an old love, a coincidental reunion, new friendships… It seems to tick all the boxes. And that was actually the case for the way the author, Sandy Baker, described the cities Cat visited throughout this novel. I felt as if I actually did visit Paris, Rome, as if I took a gondola through Venice, hiked a mountain in Switzerland, …

However, the rest of the writing just didn’t strike the right chord for me. I don’t know if it was just Cat’s tone, if it was the first person-narration… Whether it was the constant switch of tempo between phrases that lasted paragraphs and others that just would not go over 3 words. All of them. The one. After the other. Completely breaking up. The natural flow. of the story. (you know what I mean)

Unfortunately, my least favourite character turned out to be the main one – Cat goes from gushing how much she loves her fellow passengers to snapping and being rude at them, to admonishing herself for that, to completely ignoring herself about it.

The combination of those last two elements certainly took me out of the story a lot, and I ended up having to force myself to keep reading… As I’ve mentioned on here before, though, that might just be due to my personal preferences for writing…

The rating: 2.75/5
As a whole, I did end up quite enjoying the story of That Night in Paris, even if the writing of it was a bit hit and miss for me personally. If you think I’m completely off the mark though, certainly let me know below!

-Saar

That Night in Paris by Sandy Barker

4 women and one young man book a last minute whistle stop budget coach tour travelling from London to Europe. To escape things happening in their life for different reasons. They are such a miss matched group who in normal circumstances would never meet. The four thirty something girls take it as their duty to protect and guide Craig on this adventure. This two week journey makes a group of ‘bus besties’ that will last through time.

I laughed and cried so much . Fantastic very well written I could not put it down! Very very well done Sandy a book to be proud of!

From the title, you might be forgiven for thinking this is a romance set in Paris. What you get, however, is a bus tour around Europe with a cast of unforgettable characters. I must say, I enjoyed Cat's developing relationships with her bus mates just as much as that with the delicious Jean-Luc.
This is just the right pick-me-up for our times and I enjoyed visiting various cities vicariously, some I know well and miss terribly, others I look forward to visiting perhaps one day. One thing is for sure, after seeing the tacky accommodation I won't be going on a bus tour though.
Funny, easy to read and pure escapism - add this one to your happy list.

A brilliant, whistle-stop tour of some of Europe’s iconic destinations. Main character Cat signs up to a packed coach trip across Europe – rather her than me! Although she makes amazing friends along the way, I must admit some of the places they had to stay would be like torture to me, so I am very pleased to live this experience through these characters. Cat has run away on this coach trip after sleeping with her flatmate – he wants more, and Cat does not. Cat’s a nice character, she is decisive, opinionated and funny, although at times immature and quite bitchy. She is a right little horny devil though, it was a bit excessive at times for me – I mean calm it down love, we get it you fancy the bloke! In the end I found it funny really. I do like how she and bus buddy Lou decided to make the most of all the time they had in each place.Cat and friends bump into the gorgeous French man who is someone Cat used to know well, and the trip really starts to get exciting for Cat then. I don’t want to say to much about the story but it’s fun, the friends she makes on the coach each have their own reasons for being there, all running away from something. Their friendship was the winning element of the story for me – it was nice she found kindred spirits!
I enjoyed the descriptions of the scenery and iconic places with each city, we had more from some cities than others, but I guess that is in-keeping with the amount of time the coach tour had in each place.
A fun filled, laugh out loud read that is a wonderful escape. A great summer read to get stuck into.

Not my usual genre but I thoroughly enjoyed the story and escaping into a romance. Well written and I felt I knew the characters and places. Highly recommended

First having met Aussie-born Cat through her sister Sarah’s story (One Summer in Santorini) we travel with the relationship-averse Cat on a last-minute coach tour of Europe, the same tour company her sister had worked for some ten years earlier. But, unlike Sarah, Cat was a bit of a hedgehog: more self-centered and determined to “not accept love’ in her life – her oft-repeated refrain. While leaving the security of her flat and yet another ‘romantic complication’, she’s headed out to see the great cities of Europe.

Soon making “bus bestie” friends with a woman from Vancouver, Cat and Lou quickly discover that they are simpatico – and there’s not much more time that passes in the trek from London to the “campsite” out-outside of Paris where they’ll stay for two nights. Plenty of sights and moments highlight the first leg of the trip- the biggest highlight coming in the form of Cat running into (with the help of one of her new travel companions) Jean Luc, a foreign exchange student from when they were both in their teens some twenty years earlier. Best friends until Cat broke off the correspondence when her then boyfriend pulled a jealous fit, she’d not considered the chance, and the sparks and emotions between the two are as if they had never parted.

Back and forth we go, as Cat tries to deny her belief in and desire for love, so often does she claim this that one is unsure about who she is determined to convince. And fortunately, her new little gang of five doesn’t believe her either. From dealing with everyone’s own little issues, to meeting up with Jean Luc repeatedly, the scenery and some serious self-examination from Cat, the story is travel, sights, some foody moments and plenty of self-examination with a dash of guilt as the story brings us to an end – one filled with friendships new and old, family and plenty of heart. Light, easy to read and picking out some great tips for seeing the best stuff in Europe as you manage your time with ‘organized’ tours and fend for yourself – the story was a great escape from the ‘locked in and isolate’ environment of the day.

I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

Review first appeared at <a href=” https://wp.me/p3OmRo-aGb/”> <a> I am, Indeed </a>

Quite possibly the next best thing to a weekend break to the French capital that is as sparkling as champagne and as delicious as chocolate filled croissants, Sandy Barker’s That Night in Paris is a funny, feel-good and warm-hearted romantic comedy that is gloriously escapist.

Cat Parsons and relationships simply do not mix. The dedicated singleton has got neither the time nor the inclination for romance – it requires far too much effort and always ends in disappointment anyway, so Cat is determined to give relationships a wide berth with the L word not being a part of her vocabulary. Cat’s single status was not up for discussion – until after far too many glasses of wine, she ends up tumbling into bed with the flatmate who is secretly in love with her and now wants her to meet his mum. Other girls would swoon and be planning engagement parties and thinking about meringue dresses and confetti, but not Cat. Keen to avoid awkward questions and even more award conversations, Cat needs to run – fast! And an European bus tour for two whole weeks seems like the answer to all of her prayers. Except for one tiny problem: the first stop will be none other than the city of love itself: Paris! What is a single girl allergic to romance going to do now?

Grinning and bearing it seems the only option available, but luckily for her she is surrounded by a great gang of fellow travellers with whom she soon forms a close bond. Fast friendships are made and new bonds are created against an ever-changing landscape of some of the world’s most beautiful cities. As a copious amount of wine is consumed, Cat’s horizons are stretched to such an extent that she begins to wonder whether she had been too narrow-minded in her approach to love and romance. Has she been too hasty when it comes to swearing off love? Has her happy ending been under her nose all along? Or has Cat drunk far too much wine and should stick to being single?

That Night in Paris is an uplifting tale of love and friendship that is sure to make you giggle on many an occasion. Sandy Barker has got a wonderful gift for making her readers laugh out loud, creating terrific characters and describing places so vividly you almost feel as if you are living the story alongside her characters. That Night in Paris is romantic, hilarious, emotional and oh so delightful, you will not want it to end!

A great read, that is almost part travel guide and makes you want to head off on a adventure too.

When Cat bumps in to Jean Luc in Paris the spark is still there between them, even though it is ten years since they last spoke. Will she give give him a chance when she is clear that she doesn't do relationships after getting hurt so badly last time.

I liked the friendships that Cat made with the people on the holiday with her, and the references to her sister Sarah from the previous book too.

“You can only really be brave if you feel the fear and do it anyway. Brave people aren’t fearless people. They’re brave because they’re scared and they don’t let the fear stop them.”

This is a whimsical and transportive adventure about a girl name Catherine who goes on a European bus tour to avoid spending time with her flat mate, who thinks he’s in love with her.

Cat soon discovers that her trip around Europe will help her find new friendships, a love for traveling, and a rekindled romance with a childhood bestfriend.

This book was like going on vacation without going anywhere, which is something we all need, what with being quarantined right now. The descriptions of each destination were magical and delicious. I could taste the food and smell the fresh Switzerland air. I found myself googling pictures of some of these places just because I wanted to see if it matched up with the authors depiction, and everything is spot on. My only warning is that the romance doesn’t come until almost the very end. This one is more about friendship and travel.

A quintessential traveling experience without spending all the money that left me feeling nostalgic and wander-struck!

Review:

Yet again Sandy Barker took me in a trio of a lifetime!
This book is fun and funny to start! The details of the countries Cat visits on her tour are just divine and I just added a few more cities to my bu hey list. I love that Barker writes about real stuff that happens in real life! She doesn’t dress things up to look nice, she writes her characters to say it like it is and it makes you just fall in love with her books and you get to enjoy several moment of laughter throughout.

I absolutely do not like DNF'ing a book and unfortunately that is the case here. I decided around 15% that I would not be proceeding any further with this novel.

In my initial request for this title I thought this book sounded like a fun read. I found the main character to be a little on the annoying side. Each character that was introduced with either a cheating or alcoholic spouse/boyfriend was just way too over the top for me.

I also found the writing to be a bit too immature for my tastes.

I know many will enjoy this book it just wasn't the right fit for me.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for allowing me the opportunity to read this book!

Maggie 5.0 out of 5 stars

What a fun book!

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2020

If you have ever been on a bus tour for young people, or even if this is your worst nightmare, this is the book for you. It is a feel-good romp though France and Europe with strangers turned best friends for the duration. Our heroine, quite by chance, is reconnected with her best friend from highschool -- an exchange student from France-- but it's now twenty years later. And both have grown...grown up??? dunno! Relationships are key in this book, relationships between bus-buddies, fxxx buddies on and off the bus, and our hero and heroine, best buddies from the past, but do they have a future? I highly recommend this book! I stayed up way too late reading it! Just what you need right now!

Thank you to the publisher who gave me a time-constrained e-arc though Netgalley. I am not obliged to review this book and this review is my honest opinion. I am thrilled to find a new author and will have to read her first book!

That Night In Paris is a fun, cheeky romantic comedy. Cat Parsons books a last minute European coach tour to escape her London flat after she has a drunken one night stand with her flatmate. While on holidays Cat makes some new friends (her Bus Besties) and rekindles an old friendship. Cat and her friends discover some beautiful cities while enjoying plenty of good food and wine on their travels. After reading this story I really feel like some wine and cheese! This is book #2 in the Holiday Romance series but can be read as a stand alone. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy.