Sweet story, loved the middle aged woman at 49 getting a second chance at life! I thought the hotellier part of the book was fascinating, and of course FRANCE! Started a little slow for me, but ended up really enjoying it.

I simply adore the cover for this book. It capture the French charm of the book, though it does make Lucy appear much younger than her 49 years. Lucy was the manager of a high end hotel in New York before the owner stole everyone’s money and left her the subject of a federal investigation and disgraced in the industry. She takes a job in Rennes, France managing a small hotel but when she arrives she discovers that rather than taking over managing an existing hotel she must essentially create one from scratch. With the help of the buildings eccentric permanent residents, she restores both the hotel and her reputation.

This is a women’s fiction book with a romantic sub-plot, so I’m not sure why it is being marketed solely as a romance. The book was enjoyable enough and a quick read. I enjoyed all of the side characters who at times stole the story and were more entertaining than Lucy. However there were moments that had me questioning whether any of the people, other than Lucy, had ever been inside a hotel because of their cluelessness about how one functions and the basic needs of a business. I loved that Lucy was a comfort eater and wonderful french food was always mentioned and described, which made me really want to return to France.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a delightful second act, women's fiction story full of a cast of quirky secondary characters as Lucia Giannetti travels to France to help renovate a new boutique hotel after her career and love life in NYC went up in flames.

I loved these characters! This was such a fun story. Highly recommended if you enjoyed One Italian summer but wanted more of the mom's story or liked the movie, The exotic marigold hotel. We need more stories about women finding success and love later in life and this one is excellent.

Great on audio too narrated by Gillian Vance and perfect for fans of Maggie finds her muse (also by Dee Ernst). Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advance digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

Much like Ernest’s last book, the setting of this book will hook you right away, then the vulnerable characters and supporting cast will keep you reading! Definitely more women’s fiction than romance, it was a fun change of pace for me!

•More mature in age character restarting and rediscovering her life.
•The setting! Rennes, France sounds incredible! I’m read for a trip!
•A hotel renovation!! I’ve read so many renovation books lately and you know I love it!
•Sweet side characters
•Touch of romance. Of course, I would have liked more, but the story was about Lucy’s personal journey.

I received a copy of this story from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the last book I read by Dee Ernst - Maggie Finds Her Muse - so I had high hopes for this one. And they were all for naught.

This book loses itself in the renovation of Hotel Paradis. It drags and focuses more on the physical changes and less on the relationships that develop. The richer emotional life from Maggie is totally absent here. We don't experience Lucy's struggles with her self-confidence and trust, we're told about them. And the end feels a bit deus ex machina to me.

This feels like a draft, not a complete story. I'm not sure why I finished it. I guess I kept hoping it would improve?

As it stands, I won't be recommending this one.

If you’re looking for an uplifting read with some romance grab this one. It’s a cute, quick read when the FMC who is down on her luck, out of options, heads to France to take a new job. She is hired in hopes to turn a struggling hotel around. Overall I enjoyed it.

At first, I really struggled to get into this one. However, I did end up enjoying it in the end.

Lucy is a hotel manager who had lost her job because the man she had loved stole all of the money from the hotel and ran away. She moves to France for a fresh start in her industry. However, the hotel is very run down and is very different from what she is used to. Despite this, Lucy stays on to help renovate the hotel.

I went into this thinking it would be more of a romance, but I would say it's more of a women's fiction.

Overall, I didn’t really feel connected to any of the characters or the storyline, and some plot lines just did not seem realistic. There were also times where the dialogue felt choppy, but this may also be because they were supposed to be speaking French.

In regards to the romance, to me it felt very surface level and I didn't really feel like they were truly in love by the end of the story.

However, I loved reading about the renovations of the hotel and the transformation it underwent (probably because I'm an HGTV girly lol). I also loved watching Lucy grow and open up to new possibilities throughout the novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed this story of Lucy and her starting over in France. I loved hearing about the interesting cast of characters that she encountered when she ended up in France. I could picture the hotel Paradis and all of the rooms they redid and changes they made. I also enjoyed the little bit of romance with Lucy and Bing.

4.5/5 stars

Lucy Checks In is my second book by this author (I really enjoyed Maggie Finds Her Muse). I would categorize it as women's fiction with some romance.

This book follows 49 year old Lucy (1st person POV) to France as she tries to re-build her life. She is hired as a hotel manager in Rennes. But when she gets there things are not what she expected.

I was not sure what to expect from this book. I went into it not realizing that it is being marketed as a rom-com. There are some fun and funny parts and there is some romance. But to me the romance is not the main focus of the story.

The supporting characters are everything in this book! And the setting was amazing. I absolutely loved everything to do with the hotel and I really liked the romance. The last part of the book was so good that overall it just made me feel so good about this book!

4.5/5

Thoroughly enjoyed Lucy's journey to Rennes, France to not only help rebuild the Hotel Paradis but to also rebuild her life after being blindsided by her lover back in the states. The story was charming, delightful, and funny, and I loved the quirky characters in the story. This was a great escape to France from the comfort of my favorite reading chair. Dee Ernst has become a favorite author for me. Can't wait for her next book.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the review copy.

I thought this book started a little slow but picked. up as it went on. I found that once Lucy got started overseeing the hotel renovations in France, it picked up. The characters that live in the hotel are interesting & fun to get to know. Lucy's development was delightful to read as well.

Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for advanced copy in exchange for my honest review

Lucia, or Lucy, Giannetti needs a fresh start, and more so, someone to take a chance on her. She once was the manager of a swanky hotel in New York City, but then the rug was pulled out from under her. The owner of the hotel she managed, also someone she was involved with, disappeared suddenly and took millions with him. With that, life as she knows it, is effectively over. However, an invitation to move to Rennes, France, could provide the exact new beginning she has been hoping for.

I had such a great time with this story, especially once she moved to and explored Rennes, France. The scenery was really vivid and the characters were so much fun. The story was surprisingly drama free, compared to others I've read (not to say no drama or tragedy transpires). I loved the time devoted to remodeling the old building to be a new, vibrant hotel. I also really enjoyed that it wasn't just the building being improved, there were photos and a website as well. And I loved that it wasn't the complete focus. There was also plenty of room for Lucy's personal growth. I will say, if you're looking for romance from the get-go, it doesn't happen that way. It's definitely a slow burn - but the pay off is worth the wait, and doesn't feel rushed. Overall, I really enjoyed the sweetness and wittiness found within this story and I would highly recommend it.

I always enjoy books about starting over and this book is about a middle aged woman with a ruin career and needs to start over. I love that she took a risk and moved to France and the people she meets there. The people at the hotel add an interesting factor to the story. I felt the ghost was unnecessary to the story and that the romance between Bing and Lucy needed to be fleshed out more. Overall, it's an enjoyable story.

(3.5) If you, like me, are a daydreamer, don’t read this book. Since I finished it I’ve thought of nothing else but packing up everything I own, finding an adorably old, French hotel to run, and uprooting my entire life. I’ve been thinking about menus, what kind of fabric would be best for window treatments, whether I want a rose garden or lavender fields… This book is sheer escapism.

I got into this book quite easily and found its cute premise and characters made the time spent within the pages worthwhile. Lucy, our devastated and down-on-her-luck heroine, is plucky and dives into the challenge of getting this ancient French property she haphazardly signed a contract to renovate up and running as a lovely destination hotel in Rennes (with only a little complaining). I enjoyed reading about an almost-50-year-old woman who is confident in her abilities and has a more mature outlook on life and all its ups and downs, although sometimes Lucy came across as much younger than that (and the misleading cover image certainly doesn’t help matters). But I enjoyed that our middle-aged main character is adventurous and vibrant and that she embraces her age rather than acts ashamed of it.

I think this book maybe tries to be too many things — ensemble cast with a hint of found family, romance, family drama and relationship drama, a character reclaiming who they are. That means a lot of side plots are never really explored, which makes the book feel chaotic. I think Dee Ernst needed to either commit to expanding on some of these ideas or to cutting them, because it feels like she put them in, forgot she put them in, and then had to rush to wrap them up before the book ended. Side characters are introduced and then forgotten. Lucy’s past was underdeveloped. Perhaps most notably, the sheer amount happening in the book means the romance — which I (maybe mistakenly) thought would be a bigger part of the story — doesn’t feel right, because the chemistry and tension were never really there, and the relationship develops at an odd pace (I’m talking about not until at least 80 percent of the way through.) That’s odd, because the book takes place across such a broad period, so the lack of development really wasn’t necessary and messed with the plot pacing. Way, way, way too much happens in the final 15-ish percent of the book, and I got a bit of whiplash.

Still, this is a light and lovely read about someone finding themselves — in a wonderful and deliciously carb-filled setting. I really should’ve read this with a baguette, a hunt of brie, and a glass of red wine on hand, because that’s all I was craving the entire time I was reading. And now that I’m done, I guess I’ll stop looking for flights and go and unpack my books from their cardboard boxes.

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for proving me with an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I felt this may be one of those the covers does not match the content? I was expecting to see Lucy's reflective journey as she grows, but you would not be able to tell she's almost 50 based on the cover. It was more of a "whelp this is where I am" kinda story...which is a hard sell for me honestly.

Lucy was once the hotel manager of a fabulous NYC hotel. But when the owner/her boyfriend disappeared taking a large amount of money with him, she finds herself jobless and her life falls apart. Fast forward a few years, and Lucy finally has a new job opportunity in Paris, turning around a hotel there and making it a tourist attraction. But when she arrives she finds she has her work caught out for her.

The characters in this book were amazing. The residents of the hotel brought so much personality to this story and they were all loveable in their own ways. However, Lucy stole the show. Her determination and persistence were inspiring. She didn’t give up, even when the task ahead of her seemed impossible, and despite all of the curveballs life threw her way, she kept going. It would have been easy for her to wallow in her feelings, but I never felt like she did. This one was an enjoyable read!

Thank you to SMP romance for the advance copy.

Loved it. Didn't really expect to like this story as I am not especially fond of France. Not at the top of my list to visit. A second chance at life and a possible romance, along with so much more. Interesting characters. Family issues were also involved.

With things going wrong in Lucy's life she decides to switch things up and move to France for a fresh start. You want that for her and feel like she's coming into her own self. I was expecting a bit more heat and shamelessly chose this book for the travelling aspect so I may have been slightly misguided. A good read, just not what I was expecting.
Thanks Netgalley for the chance to read and give my honest opinion.

I really enjoyed the found family aspect of this story and Lucy’s journey after suffering a devastating blow that impacted her employment, relationships, and financial security. The renovation storyline was interesting and the writing helped me to picture the grandness of the hotel. Everyone contributing and having their own little roles with the hotel was really special and I enjoyed Lucy’s interactions with each of them. The build up to the romance was a bit lackluster but I did like the mutual respect and connection we got to see later on in the book. Lucy’s family was the worst, I was definitely satisfied with the decision she made in the end that allowed her to be happy and settled. Overall, this was a pretty good read, it will be a hit for readers who enjoy home-reno books with a found family trope storyline!

I was hooked on this one from the very beginning. It starts out feeling like a run-of-the-mill, second-chance-at-life story but quickly proves that it's so much more.
Lucy has spent the last two years trying to come to terms with the fact that the man she loved stole millions of dollars and left her to take the fall. Not only is her personal life in ruins, but so is the professional career she dedicated her life to. It's at this low point that she gets an offer to be the general manager for a boutique hotel in France and she jumps on it. Only, when she gets to Rennes, she finds out that the job is going to entail more than she was expecting.
It's in working hard to get the hotel ready for opening right along with the inhabitants of it that Lucy slowly starts to realize that life is more than just the job and that letting people in might not be the path to hurt that recent hard knocks might have made her think.
The story is full of beautifully described places, engaging characters, delicious food descriptions, and a whole lot of heart. It has a great message that you can restart your life with some work and that the obstacles in front of you might just be the things that make your path to happiness that much more fulfilling.
I highly recommend this one and challenge anyone to walk away not dreaming of a quiet afternoon in a small French town drinking some good wine and enjoying even better company.

Very happy thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the fantastic read!