Well, I picked this book up blind…thinking it was going to be a rom-com (I mean, with a title like this, I wasn’t completely nuts!)

When I realized (on page 2) that it was, in fact, a memoir, I was already hooked and decided to continue. And this turned out to be a wonderfully-written story about a dreamy year in France, where the author, his wife, and their young son were able to live the life they had always dreamed about—while making wonderful friends and having adventures that most merely dream of.

I absolutely couldn’t put this down, and that’s a serious compliment from me for a memoir. I also normally don’t rate memoirs with star ratings since by definition, that would mean I’m also rating the author’s life story—but this read like a novel, and I’m rating it as such. Simply because if I ignored my responsibilities to read a nonfiction book, it SHOULD be given five stars.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to receive this book for an honest review.

I was so hopefully witht he book since I recently traveled abroad but I found it hard to relate and get through.
I couldn't follow the characters and their locations.

I really struggled to finish this book; it did not grab my attention until the last 1/3 of the book. I also struggled to keep the characters and locations straight in my head.

This book was advertised as a travel memoir of a family who relocated to France for a short time. The author intended to use the time to work on his book. I enjoyed the first half of the book, but by the time I got halfway through it, I was bored by the constant partying, drinking, shopping, name-dropping. It became more about these aspects of their life than about themselves as a family and their experiences in France. I liked their child more than I did his parents! It was fun to read about the parts of France I had visited and to imagine what it would be like to live there. Obviously the author and his wife are well off and able to afford to live in France for a year while being unemployed and spending a lot of money while he wrote his book.

I received this book from the publisher and from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book. It is an entertaining book, easy to read and quite interesting to hear from the experience moving to South France as a family from the US. I can highly recommend reading it

Once Upon a Villa by Andrew Kaplan is a travel memoir and a romp on the French Riviera. It was not deep or challenging, but it was so much fun. I found it great to hear about the lives of ordinary people, who live on a budget, amongst the seriously rich and famous. Real people living their real lives having the time of their lives. All the places I’ve read about and people who are super famous were overflowing almost every page of this book. I been to France recently and the people were very nice and did not make fun of me as an American trying to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ in my awful French. As I said in the beginning, this romp on the Riviera was fun.
Thanks so much to NetGalley and Smugglers Lane Press for the eARC and the opportunity to read and review Once Upon a Villa by Andrew Kaplan
4 Stars- Pub. Date: 3-8-24

Andrew Kaplan’s new book invites us into the life of an American family staying in the French Riviera.

By 1985, Andrew Kaplan successfully published two thrillers. The second, “Scorpion,” sold well. Kaplan asked the question that many writers ask after early success: Do I quit the day job and write full time? A wife and 2-year-old child made him reluctant to take that step. Then the day job quit Kaplan, and he was unemployed.

“Once Upon a Villa: Adventures on the French Riviera” tells what happened next. Stuck at home, unable to drive due to a broken foot, Kaplan could not job hunt and was frustrated. His wife, Anne, asked him what he would do if he could do anything. His dream was to move to the French Riviera for a year and write full time. Anne also wanted to live in France.

Luckily, Mr. Kaplan received a severance package. He sent his literary agent an outline of a new thriller, eventually named “Dragonfire,” asking her if it was marketable. Using his sample chapters and the outline, his agent sold the book to a London publishing house. After receiving a sizable advance, using his savings, and selling his Southern California house, the family had enough money to move and live in France for a year. All he had to do was write the novel.

They rented a villa on France’s Mediterranean Coast, initially in Cap d’Antibes (previously rented by Roman Polanski) and later, one in Èze near where Nietzsche wrote “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” Kaplan settled down to write his book.

“Once Upon a Villa” captures the struggles that a Middle American couple experience while living and working in the billionaire’s playground of the Côte d’Azur. Getting the residence permit to remain a whole year led to a prolonged struggle with the French bureaucracy. The Challenger explosion, the American bombing of Libya, and Chernobyl all occurred during the Kaplans’ stay. Chernobyl created the same anxieties that COVID would spawn in 2020, the perils of invisible radiation substituting for invisible viruses.

It also shows the spirit of everyday life in France: searching for the perfect bouillabaisse, learning the intricacies of bicycle racing, and finding incredible baguettes baked by an 80-year-old village baker. The Kaplans encounter Americans on the lam, eccentrics of all sorts, and form enduring friendships with the local French. Kaplan also recounts his efforts writing his novel.

“Once Upon a Villa” is a delightful read, humorous and poignant. It portrays the dreams, struggles, adventures, and successes of a young American family abroad.

This appeared in Epoch Times on 3/22/2024

Once Upon a Villa is my first book from the author and wouldn't become the last. I love his writing style and make his family adventure on the Cote d'Azur become so much fun to follow.
I easily draws into the descriptive from his slice of life story, banter with all other interesting characters and enjoy the atmosphere.

Interesting and entertaining one sitting book to enjoy expecially when you're have dream to create your own fantasy adventure.

Thank you Netgalley and Book Whisperer for providing copy of this ebook. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Expecting Publication : 6 March 2024

A really nice, charming conversational memoir about moving to the French Rivera. Made me very jealous.

I just reviewed Once Upon a Villa by Andrew Kaplan. #OnceUponaVilla #NetGalley

A beautiful memoir written by Andrew is dedicated to his wife and 2 year old son. This takes place from when they immigrate to france. It was a heartwarming collection of short stories that talk about friendship.

In this exciting and adventurous memoir, readers follow Andrew Kaplan’s recollections of the time he, his wife, and their son lived in the South of France in the late twentieth century. Spending time along the southern coast of France and frequently traveling into Monaco and Italy, readers explore Kaplan’s life as he worked on another novel and tried to make his big authorial break. Their life is, at times, glamorous as part of that American expatriate community in France, and they meet a lot of mildly dubious and occasionally famous people along the way. Kaplan brings his talents writing thrillers and fiction to his memoir, and it brings out some great details and character creations and descriptions into the memoir. Kaplan paints a detailed and complex picture of late twentieth-century France and the society that he kept while living there. Kaplan’s prose is fun and engaging, with a clever balance of humor and realism that seems to play well with readers. This memoir shows readers how Kaplan became such a successful writer and makes the struggles of being an author realistic, all of which makes this book an enjoyable memoir and relatable read for other writers in search of inspiration.

Delightful memoir of Andrew Kaplan, wife and son who leave he US and move to he French & Italian Riviera. Their trials and tribulations are both heartfelt and amusing. His heartwarming and funny stories about his new friendships are memorable.
Very interesting read.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very interesting memoir. I enjoyed reading it a lot!

I enjoyed this story! Would you move to the French Riviera to fulfill a dream? Andrew Kaplan wanted the time and space to write his book, so he and his wife decided to move to France so that he could write his next book. On a whim, they decided to rent a villa in France and spent time there writing his book, meeting new friends, and exploring the region. I really enjoyed reading about their adventures on the French Riviera. They met all sorts of characters, rich and famous people who had yachts, even the royal family of Monaco. He told it in such a manner of someone sitting with him over a delicious dinner telling interesting stories of his travels and the friends they met along the way. He also talked about the story he was writing and how it came together. He writes spy thrillers which I enjoy so I want to read some of his books now, especially the one he wrote while in France. He also wrote about current events that were happening at the time, like the Challenger explosion

Thanks to Book Whisperer, Netgalley, and the author of the ARC

Once Upon a Villa is a memoir that follows Andrew, his wife, and their two year old son as they say au revior to their life in the US and move to the South of France. They have many adventures and go on a rollercoaster of a ride as they try to navigate this new life, culture, and country.

While reading this book, I frequently had to remind myself that this is a memoir and not fiction. Some of the situations they encountered, but more so the people they found themselves surrounded by, often seemed too much to be real. But yet it was all true.

I also found it interesting in that their experiences in France took place 30+ years ago and this book is just coming out now. As a reader, you have such a sense of hindsight on situations that were new at the time (i.e. the Challenger explosion).

I probably would rate this closer to 3.5 stars, but generally an enjoyable even though sometimes hard to relate to book.

Ease into an “accidental” decadent life on the French Riviera with this sweet American family. A writer is searching for some peace and change of scenery to write his novel, but quickly makes friends with French and American locals, who have friends in elite circles. Imagine getting a casual invitation to a yacht party, a daycare recommendation from a princess, and the search for the best bread. Step into this world of flowing wine and evolving adventures…and find out if they can hold onto their morality, family, and American ideals.

Once Upon a Villa wasn't the book for me, for the following reasons. First, not very relatable when someone rents an expensive villa for a year so that they can work on a novel. Hard to feel sympathetic for a family that has that much disposable income to take a year off. The next annoyance was that the book is written now but the year in question was in the 80s. 25 year gap between events and writing makes you wonder how much of the memories are true. Finally, the book is written in a bit of a dated voice, so some commentary is borderline offensive in the current world.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC for an honest review.

No idea if it’s just me or what, but I still crave comfort reads.

The world’s gotten way meaner here lately. It takes more and more effort not to simply check out and leave the awfulness to its own devices, perpetuating itself being its best-ever trick. Thus I approached this read with all the fervor I would’ve lavished on the Best-Costume Oscar had I known about the bit John Cena committed to this ceremony. The man’s fifty-five, y’all, give it up for growing old gracefully...and hotly.

Ahem. Focus, Mudge, focus!

So, back to Author Kaplan, and the idea of relocating to the Riviera. Short of money, the author clearly is not...and there’s my sticking point, the reason for my missing stars. The part of the read that was charming, the French and their cultural schizophrenia of warm, generous, welcoming people and cold, maddening bureaucracy, was outweighed in my pleasure-reading by a very arriviste kind of name-dropping and hobnobbing with the Society Set that has long made the South of France its own. So much of the book is about who the author and his shopaholic wife went around and about with that I lost my warm happy glow.

That was not fatal...the story is a lot of fun to read...it just hits me, the leftist redistributionist, in the wrong way. I do not care about Princess Caroline of Monaco. I do care about the neighbors who were kind.

I am not everyone, and I am quite sure many of y’all will not feel my collywobbles about the snobbery on view. I urge y’all to go to it, go get it, and enjoy its very real writerly pleasures. I felt uneasy about my own trip, but that is no reason you should. This tour of the land of naked privilege should entertain and distract (most) anyone.

Once Upon a Villa is a memoir about Andrew Kaplan, his wife and child’s move to France. Books about people’s experiences living in different countries and their various cultures is interesting, especially when they are this well written.
Thanks to NetGalley and Book Whisperer for my review copy of this book.

I really enjoyed this fun and witty memoir by Andrew Kaplan about the time he and his family lived in the French Riviera.. Sometimes reading about a place you want to visit is almost like taking a vacation, and this memoir definitely made me long for a trip to France!! Highly recommend. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC