The novel begins in Paris in 1930. Young girls Colette Nadon and Fleur Bonnivard (11) are best friends. Colette is part of a wealthy family, while Fleur’s parents have both died and they aren’t well off at all. Fleur’s Aunt Agnes is the housekeeper for the Nadon family. The girls wish they were sisters and spend a lot of time together.
As they grow older though, their lives change. Just before Fleur turns nineteen, Colette tells her friend she is leaving for England. They lose touch, but Fleur starts working in a bookshop and moves into her own room. She meets some people in a café near the shop and when the Nazis invade Paris, she is firmly on the side of the resistance.
Fleur and Colette have now grown up and grown apart. Can their friendship survive?
The book is well-written, I loved Fleur straight away (Colette definitely has some faults and isn’t as nice!) and I enjoyed the setting of Paris. I enjoyed the bits of French language (which I did at A-level) and the 1930s background. I liked reading something set in the 1930s as it’s a more unusual period to read about, there are certainly plenty of books set in the 1940s during World War II, but this was earlier on and into the start of the War. It was also interesting to see how money and background influences people, even if they are brought up in the same house.
Daughters of Paris
Paris 1930s
A promise that binds them together. A war that pulls them apart.
Childhood companions Fleur and Colette make a vow, under the trailing ivy of their secret garden, that they will be secret sisters forever. But as they grow up, the promises of childhood are put to the ultimate test. For Colette is the daughter of the house, and her life is all jazz clubs, silk dresses and chilled champagne, while Fleur is the orphan niece of the housekeeper and doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere.
Years later, in 1939, life as they know it will never be the same. As the German tanks roll in and Paris becomes an occupied city, the promise they made as children will have consequences they could never have imagined…
Purchase Link – https://getbook.at/DaughtersOfParis
Author Bio – Elisabeth began writing in secret, but when she came third in Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write contest in 2013, she was offered a two-book contract, and consequently had to admit why the house was such a tip. Elisabeth’s historical romances with Harlequin Mills & Boon and One More Chapter span the Middle Ages to the Second World War and have been Amazon bestsellers and award shortlisted.
Elisabeth is a primary school teacher but she’d rather be writing full time because unlike five-year-olds, her characters generally do what she tells them. When she isn’t writing, she spends most of her spare time reading and is a pro at cooking one-handed while holding a book.
She was born and raised in York but now lives in Cheshire because her car broke down there in 1999 and she never left.
Social Media Links – https://twitter.com/ElisabethHobbes
https://www.instagram.com/elisabeth_j_hobbes_author/
https://www.facebook.com/ElisabethHobbes
https://www.bookbub.com/profile/elisabeth-hobbes?follow=true
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