The French Guesthouse by Isabelle Broom #TheFrenchGuesthouse @Isabelle_Broom @HodderBooks @hodderbooks.bsky.social #BookReview

 

Sometimes the only way to rebuild is to face the past you tried to escape...

On the night Fliss loses everything - her beloved hotel ravaged by fire and fiancé exposed as a cheat - she receives devastating news: her estranged mother has died. They hadn't spoken in fifteen years and Fliss has stayed away for her own self-preservation.

Summoned to a dilapidated guesthouse in France for the reading of the will, Fliss is stunned to discover she has been left all her mother's possessions. But the inheritance comes at a price - both literal and emotional. Sharing the house is Etienne, her mother's grief-stricken, wine-soaked partner, and his guarded yet magnetic nephew, Benoit.

As Fliss begins restoring the guesthouse, she unearths long-buried secrets about her mother, their past and the true cost of her long absence. But to move forward, cure her guilt and claim the love and happiness she's never thought she deserves, Fliss must first reckon with the hardest question of all: can she forgive?

The French Guesthouse by Isabelle Broom was published on 6 November 2025 by Hodder. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review. 

One of my most favourite things about Isabelle's books are that she whisks her readers away to a wonderful new setting in every single novel. And, every single time, I find myself on Google looking for trips to the places that I'm reading about. The French Guesthouse was no exception, whilst I read this on holiday in Gran Canaria, my phone history shows just how many times I've looked up guesthouses in France! 

The French Guesthouse is another of her novels with a such a strong sense of place, exploring themes of loss, reconciliation, and forgiveness. Fliss (Felicity), is forced to rebuild her life after a traumatic night: her hotel goes up in flames, her fiancé’s betrayal is exposed, and she learns of her estranged mother’s death. 

Fliss travels to France, to a dilapidated country guesthouse for the will reading. To her surprise, she inherits her mother’s possessions, but not the life she expected. The house is shared with Etienne, her late mother’s grief-stricken partner, and Benoît, his quiet and quite reserved nephew. As Fliss begins restoring the guesthouse, she uncovers secrets about her mother’s past, grappling with guilt, estrangement, and many questions. 

Alongside the wonderful sense of place, the novel deals with serious emotional issues: grief, abandonment, and generational trauma. Fliss’s journey is not just about restoring a house, but healing her own internal wounds. There is an interesting relationship described between Fliss and her late mother, with Fliss's feelings of abandonment at the front. 

The author layers the relationships really beautifully, a mix of Etienne’s grief and Benoît’s guardedness adding a depth to the story, with a gentle touch of romance

The French Guesthouse is a warm, atmospheric, emotionally moving novel. It captures the beauty and slow rhythms of rural France, making it ideal for readers who enjoy romantic contemporary fiction with depth, and stories about families, secrets, and grief

Wonderful, highly recommended by me. 

Isabelle Broom was born in Cambridge nine days before the 1980s began and studied Media Arts at university in London before a 12-year stint at Heat magazine. 

When she is not travelling all over the world seeking out settings for her escapist novels, Isabelle can mostly be found in Suffolk, where she shares a home with her two dogs and more books than she could ever hope to read in a lifetime.

www.isabellebroom.com

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