A light addition to the adventures-in-Paris genre offers cozy fun to fans of travel fiction and tender love stories.
Personal discovery pairs well with French gastronomy in Almquist’s novel about the power of friendship and the thrill of second chances.
Around 2007, after her daughter has left home, Bostonian Jane Longworth is shocked to discover that her husband doesn’t share her dream of traveling the world together. She takes an impulsive trip to Paris alone, where she befriends two other women: Englishwoman Fiona Braxton and Véronique Moreau. Their friendships, along with the magic of the French capital, help each woman grow personally and professionally. Véronique’s career at gourmet food chain store Bon Gout takes off as she oversees the opening of a London branch; she and her husband, Jean-Pierre, work through their differences about how to balance their professional ambitions with their desire to start a family. Fiona, who’d been consumed with caring for her dying mother, slowly lets go of the guilt that keeps her working at her family’s factory; she tentatively pursues a job with Véronique’s company and a relationship with Emily Spenser, a very supportive academic. Jane follows her passion for food, enrolls in cooking school in Paris, and begins a romance with Bernard Dubois, a devastatingly handsome and charming chef. Long discussions and bonding sessions between the three women are interspersed with pleasurable, if familiar, descriptions of the sights and tastes of Paris (“the tang of the tarragon and the rich buttery taste of the bearnaise”). The three women at the center of the narrative are sympathetic and relatable, and it’s easy to cheer on their joys and successes. As the story moves along, there’s a certain repetitive simplicity in the author’s belief that the City of Lights can solve any problem. Still, Almquist is perceptive about the desires and fears of women at various stages of their lives.
A light addition to the adventures-in-Paris genre offers cozy fun to fans of travel fiction and tender love stories.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2023
ISBN: 9780985262464
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Cafe Au Lait
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A thrilling, immersive tale that shows that some bargains demand more than just a crown.
A reluctant princess is thrust into deadly political intrigue in Perry’s sweeping, high-stakes romantasy.
Odessa is the overlooked and underestimated princess of Quentis, whose life takes an unexpected turn when a deal is struck between her father and the formidable Turan warriors force her into an arranged marriage with their enigmatic prince, Zavier Wolfe. Intended as a mere formality to secure trade routes and military alliances, the betrothal spirals into something far more dangerous when ancient magic, a ruthless Guardian, and a looming war threaten to upend everything she knows. Finally emerging from the shadow of her seemingly perfect half sister, Mae, Odessa must navigate court politics, monstrous creatures, and her own uncertain place in a world where survival often depends on strategy rather than strength. As tensions rise, she finds herself entangled with the dangerous, enigmatic Guardian—a man whose silver eyes hold secrets of their own. Perry’s worldbuilding is lush and immersive, crafting a kingdom rife with old magic, deadly beasts, and political machinations that add depth. The pacing is relentless, carrying Odessa from one life-altering event to another as she grapples with duty, defiance, and a destiny she never chose. Her internal conflict is compelling, torn between the expectations placed upon her and the fierce independence that threatens to make her an outcast in her own kingdom. Romance simmers as Odessa struggles to reconcile her obligations with her growing attraction to the Guardian, whose past is as shadowed as his reputation. Mae is introduced as Odessa’s political foil, and although her presence drives much of Odessa’s internal drama—being constantly overshadowed or underestimated—she’s mostly seen through Odessa’s perspective. Her motivations, ambitions, and political maneuverings might have benefited from deeper exploration to give more nuance to the power dynamics. However, Perry’s evocative prose and intricate plotting make for a gripping tale. Readers looking for a slow-burn romantasy with rich political intrigue and a protagonist forced to create her own fate will find much to enjoy.
A thrilling, immersive tale that shows that some bargains demand more than just a crown.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781649378514
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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