Mademoiselle Benoir — Christine Conrad

Tim Reinhart enters a wondrous world the moment he buys a farmhouse in rural France. Or, in his marvelous words, "From the moment I saw this property, I had a bead on it. I can't completely explain why, but I had an intense feeling of belonging." Letters to his family back home sweep the reader up in Tim's awakening to the pastoral French lifestyle. From the meals (a solemn, semireligious rite) to the delightfully quirky neighbors, we share Tim's ever-growing pleasures. But his enchantment grows more complicated when his drawings-- and then Tim himself--catch the eye of Mademoiselle Benoir, a beautiful woman twenty years his senior. Their decision to marry sets off a cluster bomb, uncovering incendiary layers of emotional and cultural complexity on both sides of the Atlantic, as his family tries to reason with him, her family declares war, and the villagers choose sides. Will tradition triumph over love?