A New Life in the Château

by Sarah Long

Nicole and her friends are living the dream. No dull, tedious retirement for them - instead the nine friends have clubbed together to purchase a magnificent (if crumbling) château in Normandy. And after three years of shared dinners, fine wine and gorgeous scenery, they have finally settled into a routine. True, not everything has gone to plan. They're one older resident down - and several younger residents up. Will and Fizz's new baby, Louis, fills the house with life, and when Nicole's daughter Maddie and her family arrive, they are welcomed into the fold.

But money for the upkeep of the château soon runs low, so, the make-shift family decide to take in lodgers. The arrival of visitors brings a welcome new dynamic to their community, and one particular guest, the charming and intriguing artist Apolline Granger, draws them all in - with unexpected consequences.

How long can they keep living la vie en rose?

341 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 13, 2025

About the author

Sarah Long worked in publishing before giving it all up to move to Paris with her husband and three children. She is the author of And What Do You Do? and The Next Best Thing. Following several years of the Parisian experience, she now lives in London.

Reviews

[Pip · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun concept for a book. I loved that we were following the lives of a group of eight sixty-somethings and their renovation and subsequent holiday letting of a chateau in Normandy. The collection of characters had great depth and nicely showcased that you can grow old without growing up. You don't just stop being a human when you retire.

The main couple Beth and Simon break apart, take French lovers, and eventually come back together. Although it was fairly obvious they would reunite, it didn't detract from you wanting to follow their stories.

While the ending was perhaps a little too neatly wrapped up for my personal taste, that very tidiness is baked into the romcom genre, and it didn’t ultimately detract from my enjoyment. More than anything, this felt like a warm, easy read and a refreshing break from the usual twenty-something romances. As a reader in my 40s, it left me with a genuine sense of hope for the future — and a strong desire to seek out more books with older casts of characters.

A soft 4 stars for me.

[Tracy Hodge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, which is strange as this is the 2nd book in the series & I found the 1st book a little hard going!

I will be honest, I didn't have any intention of checking to see if there was a book 2 as wasn't really bothered, but it showed up on good ole Amazon & I thought - what the hell - let's see what has happened to those characters!

So glad I did as I loved meeting all the characters again and finding out what had happened - the characters had really developed & this really helped my enjoyment of the book - I so wanted to follow their lives and events!

In the end I couldn't put it down! I will so look forward to there being a Book 3 & seeing what is next for my favourites characters - which is all of them!

[Emily Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed but not as good as the first in the series. Liked the addition of extra younger characters to make it more of a multi-generational family. Didn't not enjoy the hypocrisy of Simon's character with Beth.

[Dean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not well written, and used the r word. Not sure how that got past the editors

[Kim Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable book. I like the setting in Normandy, France & the characters. The story seems plausible. The descriptions of the chateau & the surroundings are just enough without being over the top.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 ⭐️
This was a good book, didn’t realise this is the second in a series. The commune (despite them not using this term) was very dysfunctional.