GUEST REVIEW: Lost in France by Claire Ross Dunn

The click of a button could change your life. A fresh start in France is just what this mother-daughter duo needs to transform their lives, perfect for fans of Under the Tuscan Sun. Dedicated single mom and overworked film festival staffer Marlow buys a house online for one euro—then finds out there are strings attached. To sort out the mess, Marlow decides to take an impromptu holiday in France. But when the impossible local bureaucrat refuses her a refund, she decides to renovate and flip the house.

Along for the ride is Marlow’s teenage daughter, Sabine. Recently graduated but adrift, Sabine uses the trip as a chance to secretly reconnect with her Parisian father. And when a cute but arrogant boy enters the picture, things get even more complicated.

Meanwhile, Marlow finds herself caught between two men, the fascinating but irascible village handyman and the wealthy and charming owner of a nearby champagnerie. Torn between a safe but predictable life back in Toronto and a wonderful if uncertain future abroad, Marlow and Sabine must embrace spontaneity and the transformative power of being a little lost.

LOST IN FRANCE by Claire Ross Dunn. Publication: June 23, 2026

OPENING LINES

Marlow waited impatiently for her double espresso and gazed up at the drifting, lazy clouds. Maybe at the meeting I’m about to be late for, she thought, I’ll flip a table, toss my laptop into the trash, scream, “I’M OUT,” and run for the elevator. Or maybe not.

GUEST REVIEW by Sophia Rose

Her daughter just graduated, feeling adrift now, and her own dreams of making films were pushed aside to work the admin side of the film industry and be a single mom, but one drunken click of the mouse has them Lost in France for the summer. Claire Ross Dunn is a new-to-me author, but her sophomore effort of a woman needing a do-over and spontaneously buying a French village's unique fixer-upper for a euro is a tried-and-true plot that will always pull me in.

Lost in France is told in dual narration between single mom, Marlow, and her teenage daughter, Sabine. During a drunken, depressed moment after the stress of bumping into her successful film-making ex, her workaholic project efforts are going under-appreciated and credit is going to her boss, Marlow, one-clicks on the purchase of a French village house. The fine print? She has to pay the fees or occupy it, and the bureaucrats administering this fine won’t be back at work for several weeks. She has to actually spend the summer in the dilapidated place, fixing it up and hoping to sell it.

Meanwhile, Sabine isn’t sure what she wants to do after high school. Sure, she did great academically but tanked socially. Her one hidden wish is to somehow reconnect with her birth dad, and her mom’s flub over the French villa puts her right in France, where she can look up her Parisian dad.

The summer opportunity has fun cultural and fix-up contretemps, but there is romance for mother and daughter. In fact, Marlow has two fine French gents to choose from: one a down-to-earth handyman and the other a wealthy businessman. The two women grow closer over their time together and have time to figure life out, and they might be choosing to remain Lost in France over a return to Toronto, after all.

Lost in France was slow to grab me, and the characters felt underdeveloped, but I gave it a chance to pick up, and it did. I was especially taken with how the gals became part of the village and how the mother-daughter relationship blossomed. Those who like a blend of contemporary romance and women’s fiction would best appreciate getting Lost in France.

Claire Ross Dunn, screenwriter, playwright, novelist

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Claire is a screenwriter, playwright and novelist. Her romance movies include Cupids on Beacon Street and Love at Look Lodge (aka Falling for Look Lodge), seen on Hallmark, Lifetime, Amazon Prime, and City-TV. For TV, Claire wrote and story edited on the hit sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie and the teen drama Degrassi The Next Generation, and was Supervising Producer for the Nickelodeon/YTV comedy Make it Pop. Claire’s compelling, romantic debut novel, At Last Count, was a Globe and Mail Best Book, a Toronto Star summer pick, and a romance finalist for Rakuten Kobo’s 2025 Emerging Writer prize. Her next novel, a women’s lit/contemporary romance called Lost in France, comes out June 2026, and is currently available for pre-order.

ABOUT SOPHIA ROSE, Guest Reviewer

Sophia is a quiet, curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing, piano-playing, and gardening. Road trips and campouts, museums and monuments, restaurants, and theaters are her jam. Encouraged and supported by an incredible man and a loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, baseball, cats, Scooby Doo, and chocolate. As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing. In 2012, she submitted her first book review and is currently an associate reviewer.

Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener, which allows her to experience many wonderful books, authors, and narrators. Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction, particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance. Sorry, no horror...or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby. Connect with Sophia via FACEBOOK GOODREADS TWITTER