Do you dream of living in France, renovating a fixer upper, maybe a gorgeous mansion house in stunning rural countryside? I love my books, I have more than 4,000 and had to renovate the pig sty so I had somewhere to keep them all. Through the author's eyes and experiences we discover the (relatively unknown to tourists) Seven Valleys area in the Pas-de-Calais, which is now on my "must visit" list. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

I look back with fondness at the many years spent living there, but a word of warning is not out of place. I’m always reading that French people can be aloof and standoffish but learning French has opened me up to a different understanding. No missing or damaged pages, no creases or tears, no underlining or highlighting of text, and no writing in the margins. Le Bonaparte brasserie glows with red warmth in the fall and winter and is a great place to eat right in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Près.

While getting to grips with the locals and la vie Française, and renovating her dilapidated new house, a building lacking the comforts of mains drainage, heating, or proper rooms, and with little money and less of a clue, she started to realize there was lot more to her new home than she could ever have imagined. Janine Marsh shares a collection of little stories and anecdotes but fails to form a coherent, interesting tale with which the reader can connect. Aigues Mortes Boutique Hotel The hotel is housed in a 17th-century merchant’s house in the fortified, medieval village of Aigues Mortes, nestled between the Rhône River Delta and the Mediterranean Sea. She gave up a sensible job in London, where she was born, to renovate a bargain basement barn and turn it into a home - an ongoing project. If you are looking for a more in depth 'how to move to France and survive the bureaucracy' type of book, this isn't it.

Today, I’m excited to welcome someone who not only lives in France, but also has visited every corner of it. Her attachment to the region resonates in Perfectly Provence this digital magazine that she launched in 2014.Janine has a very readable style and reading this felt as though I was catching up with a friend’s about what had been going on in their life. We’re going to take a light-hearted look at some of the common stereotypes about the French - from fashion to rudeness and smoking like chimneys. I had to really guess to figure out the cities, villages and geographical spots she was talking about.