Secret places!

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Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson           

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️




I love descriptions of those Interbellum years of the 1920’s and 30’s where there was a buzz in the air. Paris was bursting with creativity—artists, writers, designers, Gertrude Stein, the Fitzgerald’s, Picasso, the Hemingway’s!
And into this world fell Ivy in pursuit of her dream to enter a Paris fashion house. Well that didn’t work out, but she did meet writer Andres Armand.
Her great granddaughter Hannah has a bad relationship (think zero) with her mother Marla, doesn’t know who her father is and has just lost her Gram who brought her up. To cap it all off she’s just broken up with her boyfriend 
What is it about the romance of a hidden apartment left as though people had just walked out waiting for their return.? It gets me every time. I thought I’d grow tired of this trope—I haven’t as yet! The mystery pulls us in. And to find it is unexpectedly yours, to find a great grandmother with a secret life is both shocking and exciting, as Hannah and her mother discover.
Moving between 1929 and 2019 this story captures that shock with a few extra layers, and with burdens that need to be laid down.  Mind you Marla is a huge challenge, although I move between giving her the benefit of the doubt and just being cross.
Hannah Bond’s search for meaning, for redefining her relationship with her mother, for the woman her Great Grandma Ivy was, and for finding her own way forward is brilliantly portrayed.

A Gallery Books  ARC via NetGalley 

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