Kisses and Croissants – Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau

Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for sending me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

_{Mia Jenrow has always known she’s destined to be a professional ballerina. In fact, it’s in her blood—according to family legend, her too-many-greats-to-count-grandmother once danced for the Paris Opera and was painted by Degas himself! Her parents say it’s just a fantasy, but to Mia it’s so much more than that. It’s her fate.
 
Mia is planning to spend a magical summer in France pursuing her dream, but as she pirou-ettes into Paris, she soon realizes it may be a bit more complicated than she hoped. For starters, there’s her rival, Audrey, who will stop at nothing to show her up. There’s her ballet instructor, whose impossibly high standards push her to the breaking point. And then . . . there’s Louis. Devastatingly, distractingly charming Louis. He’s eager to show Mia his city—and Mia is more than happy to hop on his Vespa and wrap her arms around him as they pass the gleaming lights of the Eiffel Tower.
 
Mia’s summer was supposed to be about ballet—but there’s a reason Paris is called the City of Love. . . .}

Sometimes all you need is a cute, swoon-worthy and light-hearted romance novel set on a backdrop of a beautiful city, like Paris! Kisses and Croissants is exactly that and I throughly enjoyed reading it.

Going into this book I knew very little about ballet and I thought that might be an issue given tat this book has central theme of ballet. It was not an issues at all though as the authors makes it all so easy for anyone who knows little to nothing about ballet to understand the story. I learnt a lot of ballet terms whilst reading this book and I actually throughly enjoyed the ballet aspects of the book. It has made me want to read more books about dancing and learn more about ballet overall. So, if you are worried about this book being difficult to read due to knowing little about ballet, then you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

The main character of this book, Mia is hard-working and passionate young woman who has a deep love for ballet and dreams of pursuing a career in ballet in the future. I loved watching her character develop throughout the story and see how her passions develop. We see her at the start of the book as a young woman with one want in life which develops into so much more throughout the book. Mia is a wonderful character who I throughly enjoyed reading about.

There are a number of secondary characters in this book who I also loved. Louis is your typical YA male love interest but as always we as readers can’t help but have an interest in him. He is charming, lovely and seeing him and Mia together throughout the book makes me so happy and brought a well needed smile to my face. Audrey is another secondary character that I was intrigued by at the start of the book and by the end of the book loved. The development that Audrey has in this book, in my opinion, is just as interesting as Mia’s.  There are so many interesting and well-developed characters in Kisses and Croissants and I loved them all!

I have to mention the cover of this book because I love it so much. It gives absolutely nothing away to the reader about the main theme in this book. It just looks like a somewhat typical cover of a cute, summer romance. But, if you look into the shadow of the vespa on the cover you will see the Paris skyline. It is so subtle and I love it. 

This book is wonderful and the perfect read for when the sun is out. It transported me to the beautiful city of Paris and made me want to go there soon. It made me want to go on walks down the river Seine and eat croissants in little cafes. It was a truly lovely read.

Overall, if you are looking for a cute and light-hearted romance novel then, I would highly recommend this book to you. It is well worth a read, definitely in the spring and summer months and will bring a smile to your face!