The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel – 384 pages
ARC from Gallery Books and Netgalley for an honest review
Book Blurb:
Paris, 1939: Young mothers Elise and Juliette become fast friends the day they meet in the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. Though there is a shadow of war creeping across Europe, neither woman suspects that their lives are about to irrevocably change.
When Elise becomes a target of the German occupation, she entrusts Juliette with the most precious thing in her life—her young daughter, playmate to Juliette’s own little girl. But nowhere is safe in war, not even a quiet little bookshop like Juliette’s Librairie des Rêves, and, when a bomb falls on their neighborhood, Juliette’s world is destroyed along with it. More than a year later, with the war finally ending, Elise returns to reunite with her daughter, only to find her friend’s bookstore reduced to rubble—and Juliette nowhere to be found. What happened to her daughter in those last, terrible moments? Juliette has seemingly vanished without a trace, taking all the answers with her. Elise’s desperate search leads her to New York—and to Juliette—one final, fateful time.
My Review: 4 stars
The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel adds another notch in her ever-stretching belt of intriguing historical fiction gems. Like all her books, this story was equally heartbreaking and heartwarming.
Two women become friends, each with daughters close to the same age. When Elise is forced to leave her daughter behind due to her husband’s role in the resistance, she places her child in Juliette’s care. Harmel created wrenching scenes as Jewish mothers all over Europe were sending their children to the countryside or even further to protect them from going to the Nazi work/death camps.
I adored the descriptions of the art that was threaded throughout the novel, and I could easily imagine the wood carvings that Elise worked on. Harmel also brought Paris to life, especially the bookstore where much of the book was set. This is definitely an escapist novel.
I dare say more because I fear if I keep typing it will lead me to spilling a spoiler. Book clubs will adore this one!
Quotes I liked:
If you give a person a book, you give him the world.”
“I’ve always believed that books are simply dreams on paper, taking us where we most need to go.”
“…in order for a place to feel like home, it needed to be full of love, equally given and received.”
“Even if life tranforms us, we are all who we are at our core, our whole lives through.”
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