The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel

 

Title: The Paris Daughter

Author:  Kristin Harmel

Narrated by:  Madeleine Maby

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 7 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you @simonandschuster #BookClubFavorites for the free books!

 

What is your favorite novel/movie/show that is set during WWII?  I have so many favorites.  I am looking forward to All the Light You Cannot See by Anthony Doer becoming a series on Netflix later this year.  I loved that book. 

Kristin Harmel is one of my favorite authors and her works that I have read so far have all been set during the WWII time period.  In the Paris Daughter, American ex-pats Elise and Juliette become best friends in Paris right before WWII.  They are both expecting babies.  Elise is married to an artist and Juliette and her husband Paul run a bookstore.  Both women have daughters, but as war marches across Europe, their lives are changed forever.  Elise has to make one of hardest decisions a mother has to make and give her daughter to Juliette to care for as she flees from the Nazis.  After the war ends, Elise returns to find the bookstore bombed out and Juliette and her family missing.  What happened to her daughter in her last moments?  Where is Juliette?

The Paris Daughter was a bit of a slow start for me, but once I got into the story, I couldn’t stop listening to the audiobook.  Madeleine Maby is a good narrator as well and the story was engaging.  I guessed the big reveals in this story, but I still enjoyed it.

This novel really tugged at my heart strings as a mother, and it really made me think about all of the children that disappeared or were killed during World War II (and other conflicts).  Thinking about their parents and wondering what happened to your children.  How many children were never found again?  How many children returned home to find their families gone?

I also enjoyed the story about artwork and how the war impacted it.  Art was worth more from artists that were killed during the war.  Art had disappeared and been rampantly stolen.  I also love the movie Woman in Gold and it makes me wonder how many people never got back their own works of art.

I learned new things in this novel as well and Harmel’s notes at the end are wonderful.  There is a big moment towards the end of the book that I thought was all fiction, but it was a real event.  I was intrigued.  I enjoy learning new to me history.

Overall, The Paris Daughter is an intriguing new WWII historical fiction novel that focuses on motherhood and also the art world during that time period.  I highly recommend it.