The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel โ 384 pages
ARC from Gallery Booksย 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 lifeโher young daughter, playmate to Julietteโs own little girl. But nowhere is safe in war, not even a quiet little bookshop like Julietteโs Librairie des Rรชves, and, when a bomb falls on their neighborhood, Julietteโs 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 friendโs bookstore reduced to rubbleโand 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. Eliseโs desperate search leads her to New Yorkโand to Julietteโone 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 husbandโs role in the resistance, she places her child in Julietteโs 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.โ
โIโve always believed that books are simply dreams on paper, taking us where we most need to go.โ
โโฆin order for a place to feel like home, it needed to be full of love, equally given and received.โ
โEven if life tranforms us, we are all who we are at our core, our whole lives through.โ