Book Tour & Giveaway for My Wish List by Gregoire Delacourt

Join author Gregoire Delacourt on his Virtual Book Tour for My Wish List, presented by France Book Tours, from March 18 – March 27, 2014.  Please leave a comment or question for Gregoire to let him know you stopped by.  To enter the giveaway on my blog, please fill out the Rafflecopter form below.  You can follow Gregoire’s tour here.  

My Wish List

By Gregoire Delacourt

Publisher: Penguin Books

Release Date: March 25, 2014

Genre: Women’s Fiction

Length: 176 Pages

ISBN:  978-0143124658

ASIN:  B00DMCPQRU

Buy Links:  Amazon │Barnes & Noble

About the book:

A cathartic, charmingly tender, assuredly irresistible novel, MY WISH LIST (Penguin; ISBN: 9780143124658; On-sale: March 25, 2014: $15.00) imagines one answer to the question: If you won the lottery, would you trade your life for the life of your dreams? With sales of more than half a million copies in France alone, rights sold in twenty-five countries, and a major motion picture in development, this slim yet spirited tale has sewn up the interest of the literary world.

Jocelyne Guerbette is a forty-seven year old who runs a modest fabric shop in a nondescript provincial French town. Her husband—instead of dreaming of her—wants nothing more in life than a flat-screen TV and the complete James Bond DVD box set. And to Jocelyne’s two grown-up children, who live far from home, she’s become nothing but an obligatory phone call. Perpetually wondering what has happened to all the dreams she had when she was younger, Jocelyne finally comes to terms with the series of ordinary defeats and small lies that seem to make up her life.

But then Jocelyne wins the lottery: $25,500,000! And suddenly she finds the world at her fingertips. But before cashing the check, before telling a soul, she starts making a list of all the things she could do with the money. While evaluating the small pleasures in life—her friendship with  the twins who manage the hairdresser next door, her holidays away, her sewing blog that’s gaining popularity—she begins to think that the everyday ordinary may not be so bad. Does she really want her life to change?

MY WISH LIST is an essential reminder of the often-overlooked joys of everyday life and a celebration of the daily rituals, serendipities, and small acts of love that make life quietly wonderful [provided by the publisher]

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PRAISE FOR MY WISH LIST

“A runaway bestseller that looks set to follow the success of The Elegance of the Hedgehog.” — Elle (France)

 “Delacourt has hit the jackpot… [He has a] knack for finding exactly the right words and for evoking feeling” — Le Nouvel Observateur

 “Delacourt has a keen eye for everyday life and for the extraordinary challenges that ordinary people face” — Le Parisien

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Grégoire Delacourt was born in Valenciennes, France, in 1960. His first novel, L’Écrivain de la Famille, was published in 2011 and won five literary prizes. MY WISH LIST has been a runaway number-one bestseller in France; publication rights have been sold in more than twenty-five countries. Delacourt lives in Paris, where he runs an advertising agency with his wife.

See more on his French website: Grégoire Delacourt

Follow him on Facebook  | Goodreads

Have you ever wanted to win the lottery?  Have you thought about how it would affect your life and the lives of the people you love? If you’ve ever wondered about it, look no further than Gregoire Delacourt’s My Wish List to see how winning 18,000,000 Euros changed his main character’s life.  Reminding us that the cautionary quote “Be Careful What You Wish For” is based on experience, Mr. Delacourt’s protagonist is well developed, likeable and entirely believable.  In a word, I found Mr. Delacourt’s novel C’est Manifique! 

A wife, mother and shopkeeper, Jocelyne Guerbette is content with her life in a small French town.  While her husband, Jocelyn, dreams of owning a large flat screen TV, a Porsche Cayenne and the entire DVD box set of James Bond films, she’s come to terms with life as an almost middle-aged woman and let go of her childhood dreams.  She’s also gotten used to the occasional phone call from her grown children who are busy with their own lives.  She never imagined how much her life would change from the simple act of buying a lottery ticket on a whim.

Mr. Delacourt does a wonderful job developing Jocelyne’s character from the start.  A likeable and very human character, Jocelyne is quick to point out her own faults; her chubby figure, her barely thriving shop and her inevitable bad luck.  If anything bad can happen, it usually happens to her.  When Jocelyne realizes she’s won the lottery, she’s almost dismayed at winning. She knows her life will change and while a part of her is thrilled with the idea of what she can give her loved ones, she’s also afraid of how winning will affect them all.  

Mr. Delacourt also does a wonderful job developing the secondary characters.  While told in first person from Jocelyne’s point of view, we get a full picture of who’s important in her life and the role they play in helping form who she is.  I especially liked Francois and Daniele, the two sisters who own the shop next to hers, and Jocelyne’s daughter, who understood her mother more than Jocelyne thought.  We also meet Jocelyne’s father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, and of course we meet Jocelyn her spouse, who is not quite what he seems.

Will winning the lottery make Jocelyne’s life happier? How will the money affect her relationships? You’ll have to read My Wish List to find out.  I really enjoyed it and look forward to reading more of Mr. Delacourt’s work.

My Rating:  4.5 out of 5 Crowns  

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book as a part of a book tour in exchange for a fair and honest review courtesy of NetGalley.
 

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