This book has an entertaining enough story line to hold your attention, but the best reason to read this book is for the descriptions of Paris life.

I really liked this novel: good introspection of the characters moods and personalities. A bit repetitive and patronizing to the reader on the locale: why going on and on to make us understand it takes place in Paris? We know, we can taste it, we love Paris. Over all very visual: it would make a nice movie.

Madison and Olivier are one of the golden couples of Paris society. He is an unbelievably handsome, suave, well dressed scion of an aristocratic family and a published philosopher to boot, while she is the daughter of a Texan oil billionare, tall,blonde with impeccable French and the star of nearly pornographic movies. They have a six year old daughter, Sabine, for whom they engage a half English, half French Nanny,Anna. Madison's and Olivier's lives are so fully occupied with theatre, photo shoots and maintenance of her appearance on her side, and lectures, gourmet food and public appearances on his, that Anna's company for Sabine is a great blessing, as she'd been virtually a neglected child, with with almost no parental contact. Olivier, who is also a compulsive womaniser, sets his sights on Anna, who falls for his charm, hook, line and sinker. Sabine stages her own disappearance at the local Disneyworld in order to gain some attention from her parents and this does jolt Madison into a sense of her responsibilities and a realisation of her love for her child. It's a bit of light fluff but one which holds the reader's attention because of the charm of the setting and the sheer gloss and shine of the characters who prove to be only too fallible, despite their outer appearances.

Kate Muir's clever and well written book will in some ways reverse the distaste for bad books about Paris typified by the abominably written and researched Dan Brown 'Da Vinci' mess.
Where Brown mangled the geography and wrote with a baseball bat to the keys, Muir captures the essential terroir with tasteful and witty prose, while creating a marvelous bouillabaisse of characters--Olivier Malin, an uppity French intellectual, his transplanted Texan wife Madison, their 7-year-old daughter Sabine, the Brit-French nanny Anna, the Chechen cook Luiiza and her thuggy comperes, the concierge Madame Canovas . . . they are all well drawn and their interactions entertainingly appropriate, and the story credibly plotted.
Any reader who likes the real (as opposed to the tourist) Paris will find this book charmingly authentic, capturing not just the geography but the essence of the place, conveying Gallic sensibilities through the eyes of one who is obviously and unapologetically a British writer who likes and knows the place and the people (Muir has worked in Paris for the TIMES of London). Muir's satirical edge cuts where necessary, avoiding the easy cheap shots but revealing the curious and fascinating differences between cultures--for example, between the not-quite-French-enough Madison (seemingly modeled on the Connecticut-born actress known as 'Arielle Dombasle') and the all-too-self-consciously charming and preening Olivier (clearly a thin disguise for Dombasle's husband Bernard-Henri Levy or BHL, who is mentioned by the author as a 'fellow philosopher,' perhaps to avoid precisely this comparison).
For Muir, with Viking as her publisher, this is an excellent first novel that despite an uneven middle section sustain's the reader's interest to the end. Her next offering is awaited with interest. She has the chops.
PS Oui, d'accord, 'souffle' should have an 'egu' on the final letter but the resolutely American website doesn't care and won't offer proper accents--my apologies.