Trauma and Twists of fate!

The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel      

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The fate of three women, three friends and their children, in a Paris under German occupation, is both heartbreaking and alarming.

The three women meet through happenstance when Elise and Juliette are pregnant. They go on to be good friends.

Elise LeClair, an American artist and wood carver married to feted artist Oliver, with “the brush of Picasso with the looks of Clark Gable”. Oliver’s also a communist, and an outspoken anti Nazi. They become the parents of the delightful baby Matilde.

Juliette Foulon, with her husband own a fabulous Parisian bookshop, La Librairie des Rêves. Juliette has two children. Lucie will be the third. 

The third woman, Ruth Levy, a Jewish widow with two children, Georges and Suzanne.

When Oliver is taken by the Gestapo, Elise is forced to flee Paris leaving Matilde with Juliette.

Ruth meanwhile makes the difficult choice to have her children sent to safety. Later she’s taken to the concentration camps. 

Juliette and her husband Paul stay in Paris with their children and Matilde. They suffered under the bombing. Tragedy strikes.

All three women came together because of their love of reading  and children of similar ages. They supported each other. Each suffers during the war years, in different ways, and the consequences are terrible for all three.

I had predicted what was going to happen towards the end because everything was pointing that way. This after all is not a crime/mystery novel per se, except it is criminal what happened to all three women. I must admit to a lack of sympathy for Juliette, yet quite honestly her mental health had been affected alarmingly. In many ways her subsequent actions are understandable. Her  bizarre behaviour in New York, rebuilding faithfully an identical bookshop to that of her Paris life, is a red flag that no-one cared enough to notice. That too is an indictment.

It’s when Ruth and Elise meet again in New York and confront Juliette that so many things become clear.

A sensational story of lives intertwined, of war and fear, and of loss. I was captivated by the drama, the sadness and the waste. The redemption will come but we’re not privy to that, only to a sense of new hope beckoning.

A Gallery Books ARC via NetGalley.                                              

Many thanks to the author and publisher.

Please note: Quotes taken from an advanced reading copy maybe subject to change