Review | Book review: Celia Imrie reads her second novel of expat eccentrics
Not even Imrie’s beautiful voice can cover up the occasional longueur in her prose, but the dialogue is where she truly shines
By Celia Imrie (read by Celia Imrie)
Audible (audiobook)
One way to guarantee a celebrity audiobook narrator is to hire a celebrity novelist. Celia Imrie, whose credits include Star Wars (sadly, Phantom Menace vintage) and The Best Exotic Marigold films, has embarked on a literary career. Her second novel reunites the gently eccentric cast of her debut, Not Quite Nice : expats Theresa, Sally and Benjamin living la belle vie at Bellevue-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. I suspect Imrie’s honeyed tones could make anything sound elegant. Her protagonists open an ill-advised restaurant venture, striking sparks within the group and with the locals. The culinary exception is Sally, a retired if not retiring actress whose entanglements include a Russian billionaire and the Cannes film festival. There are longueurs that not even Imrie’s voice can smooth, and her forte, as reader and author, is for dialogue.
