Review: Lost in Paris

Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What I loved the most about this book were the diary entries made in the late 1920's by Hannah Bonds great grandmother. These entries felt... I don't know how to explain this, somehow truer and more realistic to me than the book's main part.

The main part of the book deals with Hannah and her mother Marla and the discovery of a Parisian apartment that they have inherited. The apartment has been closed since 1940, so 80 years! I was surprised to read that anything in this apartment had survived. Realistically nothing should have, but there you go.

Yes, I had some issues with this book, but it was written so that it would suck me into the story, both the past and the present stories.

ARC supplied by the publisher, the author, and ATTL/Edelweiss.

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SYNOPSIS: "

Hannah Bond has always been a bookworm, which is why she fled Florida—and her unstable, alcoholic mother—for a quiet life leading Jane Austen-themed tours through the British countryside. But on New Year’s Eve, everything comes crashing down when she arrives back at her London flat to find her mother, Marla, waiting for her.

Marla’s brought two things with her: a black eye from her ex-boyfriend and an envelope. Its contents? The deed to an apartment in Paris, an old key, and newspaper clippings about the death of a famous writer named Andres Armand. Hannah, wary of her mother’s motives, reluctantly agrees to accompany her to Paris, where against all odds, they discover great-grandma Ivy’s apartment frozen in 1940 and covered in dust.

Inside the apartment, Hannah and Marla discover mysterious clues about Ivy’s life—including a diary detailing evenings of drinking and dancing with Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, and other iconic expats. Outside, they retrace her steps through the city in an attempt to understand why she went to such great lengths to hide her Paris identity from future generations.

A heartwarming and charming saga set in the City of Lights, Lost in Paris is an unforgettable celebration of family and the love between a mother and a daughter."