Review: The Champagne Letters

The Champagne Letters should have been a book I enjoyed. I want to expand my historical fiction reading and I thought Kate Macintosh’s debut novel that was, in part, about the Widow Clicquot would be interesting. It was, in part, but mostly it was just…fine.

Here’s the book’s description:

Reims, France, 1805: Barbe-Nicole Clicquot has just lost her beloved husband but is determined to pursue their dream of creating the premier champagne house in France, now named for her new identity as a Veuve Clicquot. With the Russians poised to invade, competitors fighting for her customers, and the Napoleonic court politics complicating matters she must set herself apart quickly and permanently if she, and her business, are to survive. In present day Chicago, broken from her divorce, Natalie Taylor runs away to Paris. In a book stall by the Seine, Natalie finds a collection of the Widow Clicquot’s published letters and uses them as inspiration to step out of her comfort zone and create a new, empowered life for herself. But when her Parisian escape takes a shocking and unexpected turn, she’s forced to make a choice. Should she accept her losses and return home, or fight for the future she’s only dreamed about? What would the widow do?

I started listening to this one on audiobook and ended up switching back to my egalley because something just wasn’t working for me. Could it have been the story itself? Quite possibly. I don’t think it was the narrators, not exactly. There were two - one for Natalie and one for Barbe-Nicole. I don’t know if I loved hearing the French accents - which is a weird thing to be bothered by. But I think the issue is less with the accent and more like when I start thinking too much about the language of the characters when I’m reading a book. Every part of Barbe-Nicole’s sections, especially the dialogue, would have been conducted in French as she was a Frenchwoman. But the audio was, instead, read in English by someone with a French accent. It just didn’t work for me.

I love historical fiction. But I kind of felt like this was a book that was being published simply to take advantage of a trend, not necessarily because it was a strong novel. This was not the first dual timeline novel I’ve read and it will not be the last. I almost felt like I needed more of a connection between the two women but also - I didn’t? I didn’t want it to be a coincidental revelation that they were somehow related or one of the people Natalie met was related to Barbe-Nicole. It was just a middle-aged woman (I use the same term Natalie used to describe herself), spending a post-divorce vacation in France who happened to pick up a book of letters. And then some parts of the story were about that woman who was writing the letters. It just…was kind of boring, I guess.

The past sections were mildly interesting as I didn’t know anything about how the Cliquot house began. But the present section…I wouldn’t say I disliked it. I was just more indifferent? Natalie and her story did nothing for me. I hated everything she went through and know it could happen to anyone. There’s no blame being cast. But it made me so uncomfortable to read - like it was second-hand sadness and frustration. It just didn’t make for a good reading experience and it wasn’t what I was expecting from the book.

While I usually enjoy all kinds of historical fiction, The Champagne Letters let me down. I felt like Kate Macintosh’s book was just too predictable and I didn’t get a whole lot of enjoyment out of it. I do, however, suddenly have the urge to visit the Champagne region of France…

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Gallery/Simon & Schuster, via Edelweiss in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*