With a farmhouse in Provence, a handsome fiance and the prospect of filling her home with the children she's always wanted, Julie Roget thinks her life is perfect. But when her father, world-renowned chef, Claude Roget, dies in the bed of his much younger "lover du jour," he puts Julie's life and the lives of both her godfather, Walter Siegal, and her former fiance, Sandy Fielding, in peril.
Claude's purchase of the fabled Brunei sapphires has plunged his L.A. catering company into bankruptcy and caused Walter to borrow an excessive amount of money from the petite and melancholy Don Dominic Domenico. Now the lovesick don wants the sapphires for his wife, Luisa, hoping they'll secure her love. But where are the sapphires? Only Claude knew for sure.
The search for the sapphires brings Sandy and Julie together again as they scour Beverly Hills and Provence, unaware that one of Don Nico's employees has an agenda all his own, or that Walter Siegal has embarked upon a quest to kill the don.
A comedic, over-the-top novel, "The Real Thing" shows us that love, like the sapphires, can often be found when we simply open our eyes and look.