Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris

A delightful, fresh twist on the travel memoir, Almost French takes us on a tour that is fraught with culture clashes but rife with deadpan humor.

Sarah Turnbull s stint in Paris was only supposed to last a week. Chance had brought Sarah and Frédéric together in Bucharest, and on impulse she decides to take him up on his offer to visit him in the world s most romantic city. Sacrificing Vegemite for vichyssoise, the feisty journalist does her best to fit in, although her conversation, her laugh, and even her wardrobe advertise her foreign status.

But as she navigates the highs and lows of this strange new world, from life in a bustling quartier and surviving Parisian dinner parties to covering haute couture fashion shows and discovering the paradoxes of French culture, little by little Sarah falls under its spell: maddening, mysterious, and charged with that French specialty seduction.

a love song to Paris and France, yes, but a love song in a minor key Sarah Turnbull seems to have gotten a lot closer to the real thing than most of us who will always be on the outside looking in...
--Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World

jewels of insight and the book shines with them make Almost French a worthy read. Turnbull s story will entertain, and edify, both armchair travelers and those of us nutty enough to try living here.
--Joe Ray, The Boston Globe

Turnbull s memoir is a charming, insightful meditation.
--USA Today

full of honest ups and downs its explorations of the cultural quicksand Turnbull gradually adapts to are fascinating. I hope to visit Paris one day, and am grateful to learn so many ways to avoid being an ugly American.
--Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer

You ll love this true story of a woman who left her life behind for a sexy foreigner.
--Cosmopolitan

Anyone who finds herself in a situation like Turnbull s will be luckier; she ll have Turnbull s warm, clear prose to soothe frayed nerves.
Newsday