A Nice Cup of Tea Kindle Edition

Acclaimed actor/author Celia Imrie writes with such humor and insight about British expats in Nice as only someone who knows her topic intimately could do. Cannot wait to read her other books!

Another fun book to read. Love the characters and their adventures

Four ex-pat friends (Theresa, Sally, William, and Benjamin) are watching trade fall off in their Cote d'Azur restaurant, La Mosaique. When they discover that the mosaic that gives the establishment its name was created by Pablo Picasso, they figure their problems are solved; they'll auction off the art work. Picasso's estate steps in, and now they feel really stuck.Numerous schemes to keep the restaurant afloat go awry, from a shore-to-ship delivery service to assisting the kitchens in other hotels. The owner of a neighboring brasserie wants to buy them out at an absurdly low price ... and he's not taking no for an answer.In the mean time, Theresa's got a secret admirer whose attentions are disconcerting ... and her granddaughter has run away with an admirer of her own. Sally's a former actress who has a gig land in her lap that will help them keep the restaurant going -- but that means having to work with some awful people from her theatrical past.All of the threads come together in unexpected ways, making for a delightful romp that, while not quite a fair play puzzle, still leaves the reader satisfied at the end. Highly recommended.

A group of five retired expatriates purchased and manage a struggling restaurant, La Mosaique, in the South of France. The story primarily follows two of these characters, Sally and Theresa and the book is written in slapstick style and is supposed to be a cozy mystery. The author is from London and there is a lot of UK speak in this book that sometimes made me stop mid-sentence to figure out what a word or phrase meant. I've read many books by UK authors and didn't find the language throwing me out of the story quite as much as I did with this book.For me, Theresa was the only halfway likable character in this book. Carol was just weird. Rash acting and strange, like a woman with dementia. Imogen, Theresa's daughter was so rude to her mom all the time, it was annoying. And Sally was an absolute bitch to her daughter, Marianne. These dysfunctional mother/daughter relationships inhibited my enjoyment of the story the most.The plot was a bit odd. It wasn't really a cozy mystery where some crime is committed and the reader is lead to the solution. There are a bunch of odd happenings in this book that all come to a dramatic conclusion in the end. We have a missing granddaughter, the upcoming sale of the restaurant, a stalker, and mysterious sexual trysts.

At least to me, a cozy mystery means that it has a murder in it. Usually, it takes place in the UK or USA with uncooperative or bumbling police/detectives/etc and a lovable but often quirky heroine that solves the case after getting herself into awkward and or dangerous situations. So, I kept waiting for the dead body to show up. It never did. No one dies, no one finds a body.I have nothing against mysteries that do not have a murder, and in fact, really enjoy them. But since this is advertised as a cozy and not just a mystery, I expected a dead body or two.This is the 3rd book in the series and I admit that I did not read the other two. While I did get this as a Vine book to review, it had appeared in my suggested reads and I had looked at it and was thinking of buying it anyway.I had a few issues with it. These may have been explained in the prior books, I don’t know. But the English are not known for their culinary skills. So, I don’t see how people who are known for things like beans on toast and mushy peas are suddenly able to cook at a gourmet French restaurant! But the storyline is that these 5 Brits have relocated to France and opened an upscale French restaurant. And they are so sooty about it that when cruise ships full of English arrive and want traditional English food, they would rather have their restaurant have no customers than to serve the food from their own homeland.The other issue I had is with the language. I read a lot of British authors. I am very aware that the English spoken and understood in the UK and the USA is very different at times. Different pronunciation, different meanings, and very very different idiomatic phrases. However, I don’t normally have a lot of trouble understanding what the characters are talking about. I can pick up the gist of it through context.This book, however, was a different matter. I have never run across the terms and phrases used in this book and I could not pick the meaning up through context. It does not help that the author uses a lot of French words and phrases with no translation. I do not speak French and should not have to get a French – English dictionary to read a book in English. Especially since one main character does not speak French!To give you an example, in one case the character said, “at the end of the pier”. I have never heard that expression. The French character then said to the effect that she must mean that she wanted to throw them off the end of the pier. But no, the English character comes back and says I guess it doesn’t translate. Well, then it didn’t translate to English either! Because that is what I thought it meant too. Like our saying, “to walk the plank”. But no “translation” or explanation of what it meant was given, leaving me feeling that this author doesn’t care that English is spoken by many more people in the world than that live in England and that she may be using an excessive amount of terms and phrases that will not be understood by many readers.I wasn’t overly fond of most of the characters. They were all right I guess, but they most certainly are not anyone I would ever want to meet in real life. The story was ok. I did read it all, although mostly I kept looking for the murder to show up and trying to guess which character would be killed and by whom. And I have to wonder if I would have kept reading if I didn’t keep looking for that to happen. I’m not sure I would have.

Celia Imrie is an actress who quite easily falls into ther category of "national treasure". She's been in, what, maybe 33,000 movies and tv shows and theatrical productions (I MAY be exaggerating just a bit) and, if she didn't exactly play all leads, she was (and is) always a thoroughgoing professional who enhanced every production she was in by her mere presence.A while back she started writing what we tend to call "cosy" mystery novels and each of them is exactly what you would expect from someone of her standards.This latest is just that: Indeed the feeling you get from it is EXACTLY what the title promises and, if you know that the title is a bit of a pun, you still get exactly what each reading promisesLook, the book isn't going to change your life and it certainly won't cause you to decide Imrie belaongs on the same shelf with Dickens or Shaw or, even, Christie. But it will allow you to spend a few hours in some eceeedingly clever, fun, company and maybe relieve some of the burdens of an ever more burdensome world for a whileIs there a problem?

This is the third book in Celia Imrie's series of books concerning a group of ladies who have made their home on the French Riviera. I do hope it is not the last. I find myself engulfed in their exploits, some funny and others thrilling. It is though I was a part of the gang! Please tell me this is not the last book of the series. No. No. Nooooo! They are the equivalent of "happy therapy"! Keep going Celia.

This book starts with the five friends facing bankruptcy. The Picasso they had discovered in their restaurant turns out not to be a real Picasso (or not accepted as such by his family) so they have to earn more money to keep the restaurant open and this is about their efforts to do that. It ends well but there are several twists and turns along the way.

When I saw Celia Imrie had written another book about Belle Vue Sur Mer I knew I was in for a delightful read. I wasn’t disappointed. Not having been to France in the summer for a few years I was delighted to be taken to the Riviera where Celia’s characters come to life. So vivid are her descriptions, I easily imagined the story as if I was watching a brilliant comedy on the big screen. Just loved it 😊

I LOVED the two previous Nice books. However, this one, the third in the series, is very disappointing. It starts with a huge gaffe about passports (why didn't she check her facts?) so then it's hard to believe anything else in the story. The plot is thin and the characters uninteresting, and she keeps harping back to the tragedy in Nice, all rather depressing. Not a great read.

An amusing continuation of the Nice series with the restaurant struggling for various reasons. Two of the group find interesting ways of replenishing their individual coffers which is not totally acceptable to others. a good easy to read tale.