Publisher's Weekly
Funny and poignant, a recently widowed American woman's account of her struggles to cope with the French (both the language and the people) provides a long overdue corrective to Peter Mayle's idyllic portraits of Provence. ''Like bad hair days, there are bad French days,'' reflects 40-something Anna Green Devlin, who has taken a villa in the South of France, ''and when they happen the language is no more comprehensible than beautiful, but unfamiliar music.'' Unfortunately, the entertaining saga of Anna's attempts to become a chatelaine francaise is interrupted by cliched third-person flashbacks describing her courtship by Nick Devlin that depict such improbable situations as Nick appearing nude before an elevator full of convention delegates while pursuing Anna. Pascal, creator of the Sweet Valley High series for young adults, throws in plenty of piquant details--Anna is a Jewish princess and successful rock-music lyricist with a daughter somewhere back in the States--but since the novel covers only her romance with Nick and her widowhood, readers ultimately become impatient for these details to be explained. Anna in France is a treat; the rest of her story doesn't come to life.

Library Journal
Pascal's novel presents two significant summers in a woman's life. In the present, newly widowed, she adjusts to life in the south of France, where she has retreated to escape her memories and well-meaning friends. Flashbacks presented in alternating chapters show us the young woman of 20 years ago, who less than a month before her wedding falls head over heels for someone new. Women who have tried to remake themselves after a marriage ends will feel much sympathy, and some shared amusement, for Anna's plight as she tries to make new friends, oversee household repairs, and return to her writing career, all in a foreign language yet. For fiction collections in most public libraries.-- Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati Technical Coll.

BookList - Melanie Duncan
Nick Devlin, editor of a small New York weekly, walks through the office doors for the first time and sees Anna Green, a young reporter, with whom he falls in love. Anna is engaged to another man, but she is drawn to Nick for reasons she can't explain. Two hours before her wedding, she runs away with Nick. Anna and Nick are young lovers with a lifetime ahead of them, but that lifetime is shortened by tragedy. Anna escapes to France with her memories and buys a villa, where this capable romance, told in a series of flashbacks, begins. Francine Pascal is best known as the creator of the Sweet Valley High series for teenagers; "If Wishes Were Horses" is her second adult novel.