Celia Imrie
Celia Imrie has published 7 books across 3 series. The recommended reading order starts with The Happy Hoofer (2011).
Celia Imrie is an English author of novels and an Olivier Award-winning actress. She has appeared in films such as Bridget Jones’ Diary, Calendar Girls, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as well as television shows and stage productions. Her acting career has also earned her a Screen Actors Guild nomination. Imrie made her debut as an author in 2011 with her autobiography, The Happy Hoofer. She later transitioned to fiction, releasing her first novel, Not Quite Nice, in 2015. This book launched the Nice Trilogy, which includes Nice Work (If You Can Get It) and A Nice Cup of Tea. Her other novels are Sail Away and Orphans of the Storm. Imrie divides her time between London, England and Nice, France, and is currently filming for the Netflix series The Diplomat.
Shelf & Shadows
Order of Nice / Bellevue-Sur-Mer Books
- TagsromancechildrenDescriptionThe French Riviera promises sun-drenched afternoons and elegant reinvention, but for a handful of British expats settling into the seaside town of Bellevue-sur-Mer, paradise comes with complications no guidebook mentioned. Celia Imrie invites us into a world where retirement dreams collide with the messy realities of starting over—where language barriers are the least of your problems when your neighbors have secrets, your finances are precarious, and the local customs feel designed to humiliate newcomers at every turn. What sets this novel apart is Imrie's keen eye for the absurdities of expatriate life and her genuine affection for characters who refuse to fade gracefully into their golden years. These aren't sanitized retirees sipping rosé on terraces—they're flawed, funny, occasionally desperate people grappling with loneliness, reinvention, and the stubborn hope that geography might solve what time cannot. The ensemble cast weaves together in unexpected ways, their individual struggles building toward a portrait of community that feels earned rather than sentimental. Imrie, herself an acclaimed actress, brings theatrical timing to her prose, balancing sharp social observation with warmth that never tips into saccharine. This is cozy fiction with bite, a story that understands how moving to France at sixty might be equal parts liberation and free fall, and how the people you least expect can become the family you didn't know you needed.Publication dateFebruary 26, 2015Amazon rating3.5/5Print length323LanguageEnglishPublisherBloomsbury Publishing
- Tags---DescriptionThis book knows exactly what it's doing. It takes a group of British expats in a sleepy French Riviera town, hands them a restaurant dream, and watches everything spiral into delicious chaos. Celia Imrie writes with the timing of someone who's spent a lifetime reading rooms—and it shows. Theresa, Carol, William, and Benjamin think opening a restaurant in Bellevue-Sur-Mer will be straightforward. It's not. There's a mysterious intruder. Secrets lurking in the walls of their new property. And then there's Sally, a former actress hiding from her past, who wants nothing to do with the venture—until the Cannes Film Festival rolls into town with unexpected guests and a handsome Russian in tow. Suddenly everyone's tangled in love triangles and shady business deals, and the line between friend and foe gets very blurry. What sets this apart is Imrie's eye for the absurd colliding with the everyday. The glamour of Cannes spills into their quiet corner like champagne over a glass rim, and suddenly these retirees are knee-deep in skulduggery they never signed up for. It's witty without being mean, warm without being saccharine. The kind of book that makes you want to pour a glass of rosé and settle in for the mess. You'll laugh. You'll root for them. And you'll absolutely want to know who's actually nice.Publication dateMarch 1, 2016Amazon rating3.9/5Print length400LanguageEnglishPublisherBloomsbury Publishing
- TagsmysteryromanceDescriptionTheresa is running. Not from danger, but toward something she can't quite name—a life that feels like hers, perhaps, in a sun-drenched corner of the French Riviera where the sea glitters and possibilities shimmer just out of reach. She's left London behind, traded gray skies for azure, and now she's opening a restaurant in the charming seaside town of Bellevue-sur-Mer. It should be a dream. It is a dream. Except dreams have a way of colliding with reality when you're navigating French bureaucracy, temperamental chefs, and a cast of expatriate neighbors who are equal parts maddening and magnificent. Celia Imrie conjures the Côte d'Azur with the affection of someone who knows its contradictions intimately—the glamour and the grit, the warmth and the sharp elbows. Theresa's new life is painted in vivid strokes: market stalls bursting with produce, the clatter of a kitchen finding its rhythm, the particular loneliness of reinvention. Around her swirl a ensemble of British transplants, each nursing their own reasons for escape, each bringing their own chaos to the table. This is comfort reading with bite. Imrie doesn't shy from the messiness of starting over or the absurdities of expat life, but she wraps it all in prose that feels like afternoon light slanting through shutters. Warm, wry, and utterly transporting. A novel for anyone who's ever wanted to chuck it all and start fresh somewhere beautiful.Publication dateMay 16, 2019Amazon rating4/5Print length387LanguageEnglishPublisherBloomsbury Publishing
Order of Non-Fiction Books
- Tagsnon-fictionbiographyDescriptionThe Happy Hoofer is a testament to the peculiar grace of a life lived slightly askew, where ambition meets accident and the result is something closer to art than disaster. Celia Imrie, one of Britain's most beloved actresses, opens her autobiography with a confession: she never wanted to act at all—she wanted to dance, to join the Royal Ballet, to marry Rudolf Nureyev and live in tutus and spotlights. What unfolds instead is a career built on chaos narrowly averted, on scenery clinging to cardigans mid-performance and kidnappings en route to film sets, each mishap transformed into anecdote through Imrie's particular brand of resilience. Her life hurtles forward with a momentum that seems both accidental and inevitable, a series of collisions with circumstance that leave her, remarkably, almost unscathed. The autobiography captures not just the incidents themselves but the strange luck of someone who stumbles into adventure and emerges with stories rather than scars. Imrie writes with the timing of someone who has spent decades on stage, knowing when to lean into absurdity and when to let a moment speak for itself. The Happy Hoofer is less a chronicle of achievement than a portrait of survival through humor, a life where the gap between dream and reality becomes its own kind of performance, one worth watching from beginning to end.Publication dateApril 14, 2011Amazon rating4.1/5Print length320LanguageEnglishPublisherHodder & Stoughton
Order of Standalone Novels
- TagsmysteryromancechildrenDescriptionCelia Imrie's *Sail Away* understands something essential about modern life: that escape is not always what it promises to be, and that the people we flee with can become the very thing we're running from. When a group of strangers boards a luxury cruise ship, each carries their own reasons for leaving solid ground behind. Some seek adventure, others solace, a few simply want to disappear for a while. But the confined elegance of life at sea has a way of stripping pretense, and what begins as a voyage of leisure quickly becomes something more complicated—a floating microcosm where personalities clash, secrets surface, and the carefully maintained facades of polite society begin to crack. Imrie writes with the sharp eye of someone who has spent time observing people in close quarters. Her prose is brisk and knowing, alive to the absurdities and small cruelties that emerge when strangers are forced into proximity. The humor is dry, the observations keen. This is a novel about what happens when you can't simply walk away—when the exit is weeks distant and the only choice is to navigate the mess you've made. It's about reinvention, resilience, and the strange intimacies that form when there's nowhere left to hide. A voyage worth taking.Publication dateJanuary 1, 2018Amazon rating4.1/5Print length368LanguageEnglishPublisherNew York : Bloomsbury Publishing
- Tagschildrenhistorical-fictionDescriptionWhat becomes of those who find themselves adrift in a world that has suddenly turned hostile, where the familiar comforts of home and family have been swept away by forces beyond their control? Celia Imrie crafts a story steeped in the atmosphere of upheaval and resilience, where the storm of the title is both literal and metaphorical—a tempest that leaves its characters stranded, searching for shelter in an uncertain landscape. The air here is thick with the weight of displacement, the quiet desperation of those who must rebuild their lives from fragments, and the tentative hope that flickers even in the darkest moments. At the heart of the narrative are individuals bound together not by blood but by circumstance, orphaned in ways that extend beyond the loss of parents to encompass the loss of certainty itself. Imrie traces their paths with a careful eye, observing how they navigate the terrain of survival, how they forge connections in the absence of what was once taken for granted, and how they discover unexpected strength in their shared vulnerability. The prose moves with a measured grace, allowing readers to inhabit the emotional landscape of characters who must reconcile their past with an unknowable future. This is a novel about what endures when everything else has been stripped away—about the quiet courage required to continue, and the fragile bonds that sustain us through the storm.Publication dateDecember 14, 2021Amazon rating4.3/5Print length416LanguageEnglishPublisherBloomsbury Publishing
- Tagsromancehistorical-fictionDescriptionRainbow Corner was a real place in wartime London, a bustling American Red Cross club near Piccadilly Circus where GIs and locals mingled during the darkest days of the Blitz. It's there that Celia Imrie sets this standalone novel, weaving together the lives of people drawn to its warmth and promise during World War II. The story follows a cast of characters whose paths cross at this iconic meeting place, where romance blooms against the backdrop of air raids and uncertainty, where friendships form in the shadow of war, and where every encounter carries the weight of knowing tomorrow is never guaranteed. The club becomes a haven, a place where the music plays loud enough to drown out the sirens and where, for a few precious hours, ordinary people can forget the extraordinary horror unfolding around them. Imrie brings her signature warmth and keen eye for human detail to this historical setting, capturing both the resilience and vulnerability of a generation living on the edge. The novel explores how people find connection and hope even when the world seems determined to tear everything apart, and how a single place can become a lifeline for those who need it most. This is a story about survival, not just of bodies but of spirits, about the small acts of courage that happen every day in wartime, and about the enduring power of human connection when everything else feels fragile and fleeting.Publication dateJuly 4, 2024Amazon rating4.4/5Print length365LanguageEnglishPublisherBloomsbury Publishing
Frequently Asked Questions about Celia Imrie
Celia Imrie's books can be read in a few different orders. Her fiction is divided into the Nice/Bellevue-Sur-Mer series, standalone novels, and the Order of Non-Fiction Books. If you prefer to read her fiction chronologically by publication date, you can start with Not Quite Nice from 2015 and proceed through the Nice books, then the standalone novels. Alternatively, you might start with her non-fiction book, The Happy Hoofer, published in 2011, before moving to her fiction. For readers interested in her standalone novels, any of those titles can be read independently of her series.
A good starting point for Celia Imrie's books is her non-fiction title, The Happy Hoofer, published in 2011. This offers insight into her life and career before her fiction writing began. Alternatively, you could begin with the first book in her Nice series, Not Quite Nice (2015), to enter the world of her fictional characters. Her standalone novels, such as Sail Away (2018) or Orphans of the Storm (2021), are also accessible entry points as they do not require knowledge of other books.
The Nice series by Celia Imrie is intended to be read in order. The novels follow a narrative that progresses from one book to the next. Her standalone novels, however, can be read in any order. They do not require prior reading of other books or series. Her non-fiction book, The Happy Hoofer, can also be read independently at any point.
Celia Imrie writes both standalone novels and books within a series. The Nice/Bellevue-Sur-Mer books form a connected series. She also has a collection of standalone novels published separately. In addition to her fiction, she has written a non-fiction book. This mix of forms allows readers to engage with her work in different ways, whether they prefer connected stories or individual narratives.
Celia Imrie has written a total of seven books. This includes three books in the Nice/Bellevue-Sur-Mer series, three standalone novels, and one non-fiction book. Her published works span from 2011 to 2024, showcasing a career that includes both personal reflection and fictional storytelling. The number of books reflects her contributions to both memoir and contemporary fiction.
The first book Celia Imrie wrote was The Happy Hoofer, a non-fiction work published in 2011. This book predates her foray into fiction writing. It offers readers an early look into her storytelling capabilities and personal experiences. Following this, she began her series of novels.
Celia Imrie's most recent book is Meet Me at Rainbow Corner, published in 2024. This title is part of her collection of standalone novels. It continues her work in contemporary fiction, offering readers a new story. The publication date places it as the latest addition to her literary output.
Celia Imrie writes contemporary fiction and non-fiction. Her fiction includes both a series of connected novels and standalone stories. Her non-fiction work, The Happy Hoofer, is a memoir. The themes and settings in her novels often explore relationships and personal journeys. Her writing style is accessible and engaging for readers of general fiction.
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We verified the reading order for Celia Imrie's books by cross-referencing official publication dates, ISBN databases, and publisher catalogs.
Last verified: April 2026
Shelf & Shadows. (…). “Celia Imrie Books in Order.” Retrieved …, from https://www.shelfandshadows.com/authors/celia-imrie