Fun read but not a lot of depth. I never really connected with Lucy as a character. The setting was wonderful, however.

A very straightforward book - no real plot twists or turns of events. I kept waiting for it to become like Hotel Nantucket, but never really got to that level. I enjoyed this book similar to how I would enjoy an HGTV show, very even and mindless.

This was a delightful women's fictional story with a full of wonderful secondary characters. Lucia Giannetti travels to France to help renovate a new boutique hotel after her career and love life in NYC went up in smoke. Caught up in a scandal with the hotel she managed in New York City Lucy found herself in need of a second chance. That chance was given to her when she is given an offer to manage a hotel in France. This was a quick read which I found very enjoyable.

I did not know how badly I needed to escape (virtually) to France until I read LUCY CHECKS IN. Lucy is 49 years old and once had a successful career in hotel management, until her lover/boss disappeared with millions of dollars in investors' money and employees' retirement savings. After a two-year-long legal battle, Lucy is exonerated of all charges, but still unemployable and tired of living in her childhood room. She accepts a job managing a family inn in Rennes, France, but is shocked to learn she will be personally overseeing (and participating in) the renovation of a building that has been largely vacant for over 50 years.

A ragtag group of residents lives in the hotel full-time, many of them investors and/or casual employees. Soon Lucy finds herself invested not only in the Hotel Paradis but also in the lives of those who reside there, especially the occasionally irritating artist, Bing.

This is a fantastic novel about second chances and finding yourself and all sorts of profound things, with a heaping dose of fun and entertainment. #LucyChecksIn #NetGalley

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the ARC of this in exchange for my honest review!

This almost hit the mark for me, it wasn’t bad but it also wasn’t amazing. Just kind of average! Nothing wrong with that, but it didn’t fully sell me on it.

Lucy was great and I loved the renovation portions of the book. That felt very HGTV, which I loved. The chapters, however, were way too long and held a long list of side characters to keep track of. Definitely a fiction book rather than a romance.

3 stars.

This is a cozy and heartwarming story about a woman at mid-life who needs to reinvent herself. After her professional life blows up and she ends up living back at home, 49-year-old Lucy heads off to France to forge a new life. This is a pretty slow burn, as we watch Lucy creating a new life and considering falling in love again, without any major drama throughout most of the book. The big twist comes late in the story, and the ending made it for me - I loved it.

Great setting - made me want to visit Lucy's hotel in France. The portrayal of the neighbourhood and market felt spot-on. A nice cast of characters in the hotel to support the main character.

I wasn't entirely sure how I was going about this book going into it. The description read like it be a little old for me and I wasn't sure I was in the mood for it, but boy was I wrong. I needed this book, it was the hug I didn't know I was looking for. I flew through this book in two days and already know that I'm going to have to own my copy. I loved this story of a woman starting over and finding her worth and finding love. It makes me want to move to France, which isn't bad either. Overall, definitely recommend this book, especially for fall. It just has that fall, cuddle in a sweater and drink tea type of vibe.

So fun!

I enjoyed Maggie Finds Her Muse by Dee Ernst last year, and this was also an enjoyable read! Her books always remind me of holiday reads, taking readers to a new part of the world, discovering it alongside the main character, in this case, Lucy, a 49 year old woman who is rebuilding her life in France!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the earc in return for an honest review.

This was a cute book about an older woman trying to find her way in the world. I enjoyed her journey to find herself. I loved the romantic moments.

The setting of this sounded so beautiful and made me want to go to France.

I enjoyed the hotel renovation and sweet side characters. This was a cozy but somewhat heart breaking read.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Lucy Checks in features forty-nine year old Lucy. Lucy has recently lost a job and a relationship and is ready to start over so she moves to France to manage a hotel.
I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, fluffy read. Although it's considered a romantic comedy, there's not a lot of romance going on.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the gifted copy for my honest review!!

This was a cute book! I enjoyed the characters and the setting! I however really didn’t love how long the chapters were. Gosh they were really long. There were a lot of regular side characters to keep track of. There was a lot of repetition of Lucy’s past and describing the French work contracts. And honestly, I thought Lucy was a young woman until she mentioned she had gray hair and her age. She comes off very immature and inexperienced in life except for the hotel business. I didn’t love that there was a last second love story thrown in. Then the last part of the book where she all of a sudden becomes her nieces legal guardian and uproots them to France seems pretty out there for me. I mean I have two kids and thinking about taking them from what they know to a foreign country seems very outrageous. He ghost was so random too.

I did however love the driver, Georges, and the chef Stavros! They were such sweet side characters! I will say though, as much as this book wasn’t for me, I loved the images created of this old historic hotel and seeing it rise through the ashes! It made me want to stay there! Very beautiful image building of the hotel!

This book was definitely more chick-lit than I expected. Although, I did quite enjoy this read! I really liked that Lucy basically started her life over at 49. That gives me hope that if she can do it, I know I would be able to.

I really enjoyed the side characters the most though. They each had their own little story and I adored it.

Thank you NetGalley for the arc.

Almost 50 year old Lucy Giannetti is starting over in France managing/fixing up a hotel. But it isn't quite like she expected. Even though this was pretty predictable, this book was a quick and easy read.



Thank you NetGalley and publishers for this ebook for an honest review.

This is very entertaining, slow burn love story. Lucy is known as the woman who could turn any hotel around. She worked for a wealthy hotel owner who embezzled millions and left the country. No one believes Lucy when she tells them that she knew nothing about his scheme, but she is left disgraced.

She ends up in France, faced with the task of turning a run around house into a hotel. There’s quite a cast of characters who already live there, and as she stays longer and longer she becomes part of their family.

One of the residents is a sexy man named Bing. Bing and Lucy spend a lot of time fixing up the rooms, and the two get closer and closer. Their attraction for one another is undeniable, but Lucy is not sure if she wants to get involved.

Can Lucy turn the Hotel Paradise into a 5 star hotel? Can she and Brad find a little paradise for themselves?

This was such a fun book to read, I highly recommend it. 4.5 stars.

Synopsis:

Dee Ernst's Lucy Checks In is a delightful work of romantic comedy about a disgraced hotel manager who travels to Rennes to rebuild a hotel and her own life in the process.

Lucia Giannetti needs a fresh start. Once the hotel manager of a glamorous NYC hotel and intimately involved with the hotel’s owner, Lucy had her entire future planned out. But when the owner disappears, taking millions of dollars with him, Lucy's life as she knows it falls apart.

Two years later, forty-nine years old and unemployed, Lucy takes a job in Rennes, France to manage the Hotel Paradis. She pictures fur quilts and extravagant chandeliers, but what she finds is wildly different. Lucy is now in charge of turning the run-down, but charming hotel into a bustling tourist attraction. Between painting rooms, building a website, and getting to know Bing, the irritatingly attractive artist, Lucy finds an unexpected home. But can she succeed in bringing the Hotel Paradis to its former glory? 

Witty and heartfelt, Lucy Checks In is an inspiring and feel-good novel about reclaiming your life, finding love, and creating a home in places you never thought possible.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This is a fun novel about second chances with a little bit of romance. Lucy takes a hotel job in Rennes, France, after being investigated for embezzlement by the FBI after the owner steals a boatload of money and disappears. What she thinks will be running it is actually helping to get it in running order. We go on a lighthearted journey as Lucy figures out her new place and meets a bunch of great characters.

I must note that Lucy is forty-nine years old and it was refreshing to have the second chance not be about a young person with their whole life ahead of them. While not really laugh out funny, I smiled often and adored Lucy and her new coworkers and hotelmates. If you’ve ever needed a second chance, you’ll like reading about Lucy.

This book was a fun. I enjoyed seeing a book where the heroine was a little older than most people are in romance books. I loved all the HGTV vibes. This felt like a classic Hallmark movie and it felt like a really interesting story. I probably wouldn't have picked this up without the description and some of the other early reviews. But I'm glad I did.

Classic Rom-Com! Super positive and light. Easy read and the author does a good job making the reader feel like they’re actually in the book. Very inspiring. I thought it was a little long but I loved all the characters and their quirky personalities :)

Thank you NetGalley, author, and publisher for giving me this arc in exchange for my honest review. Loved Dee’s first book so I was excited to read this one! Easy and heart warming story. Loved it!

As a big fan of Maggie Finds Her Muse, I was really looking forward to Lucy Checks In, the second novel by author Dee Ernst, released earlier this month.
Lucy is recruited to oversee the renovation of a small family-owned hotel in France. Lucy thought her life in the hotel business was over after her former boss (and lover) stole millions of dollars and disappeared, leaving her fellow employees, other hotel managers, and even the FBI thinking that she must have been in on his plan. Having not worked for two years and stuck in NJ without any other options and no money after paying all the lawyer fees to get exonerated, Lucy decides to move to Rennes for the job. When she arrives, the hotel is in need of lots of work and, instead of overseeing a team of professionals, Lucy finds herself charged with painting and scrubbing the hotel back to perfection. Her hard work pays off as she re-finds both herself and her faded confidence throughout her experiences in the town and her interactions with the other permanent residents of the hotel.
Sadly, there were a few misses for me in reading and reviewing this one. First, the misleading cover didn’t match the story inside. Contrary to the young woman on the cover, the MC of Lucy Checks In is a 49 year old woman with a few extra pounds, and contrary to the rom-com quality of the cover and the romance classification, this reads as women’s fiction.
Second, the pacing felt off. I struggled to keep going through the first half of the book, setting it down for multiple breaks that lasted days at a time. If it hadn’t been an ARC, I may have DNFed. But the last 35% of the book was excellent! I laughed, I cried, and I couldn’t put it down (finally!). The romance was a small part of it, but it was excellently portrayed.
Many thanks to St Martin’s Press, St Martin’s Griffin, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. I love stories with older (single) protagonists showing that women continue to live and experience new opportunities beyond the age of 30, even romance! I think if you’re very interested in detailed hotel renovations, you might enjoy this one throughout, not just the end as I did!