The Last Restaurant in Paris by Lily Graham WW2 fiction /dual timeline
A very different story of wartime that I really loved.1987 and Sabine is rather surprised when she gets a call informing her that there has been a restaurant left to her. It turns out that her mother was adopted and her true grandmother was the owner of Luberon, a restaurant that had rather a history. It was opened during the occupation and closed when the owner was executed for poisoning her customers. Sabine is put in touch with someone who worked at the restaurant in his teens and remembers the incident. George finds he can remember far more than he ever thought. This is the story of their discovery and of a curious incident during the occupation.
Wow! This is such a captivating enchanting story that quickly drew me in. It's a cleverly thought out, well honed plot line that nicely alternates between two time lines- 1987 and before/during the war. It's hard not to admire these stories and although fiction, we know that there were many brave resistance fighters putting their lives at risk for what they truly believed in. I loved Elodie’s story and the determination and fierceness of Marianne, both shining in the face of adversity.A very different, wonderful story that I loved- 5* from me.
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About the Book:
Paris 1944. To save her people, she served the enemy.
In enemy-occupied Paris, as the locals go to bed starving and defeated by the war, music and laughter spills through the door of a little restaurant, crowded with German soldiers. The owner Marianne moves on weary feet between its packed tables, carrying plates of steaming, wholesome food for the enemy officers. Her smile is bright and sparkling, her welcome cordial. Nobody would guess the hatred she hides in her heart.
That night, the restaurant closes its doors for the final time. In the morning, the windows are scratched with the words ‘traitor and murderer’. And Marianne has disappeared without a trace…
Years later, Marianne’s granddaughter Sabine stands under the faded green awning, a heavy brass key in her hand, staring at the restaurant left to her by the grandmother she never met. Sabine has so many questions about herself. Perhaps here she can find answers, but she knows she isn’t welcome. Marianne was hated by the locals and when Sabine discovers they blamed her for the terrible tragedy that haunts the pretty restaurant, she is ready to abandon her dark legacy.
But when she finds a passport in a hidden compartment in the water-stained walls, with a picture of a woman who looks like her grandmother but has a different name, she knows there must be more to Marianne’s story. As she digs into the past, she starts to wonder: was her grandmother a heroine, not a traitor? What happened to her after the tragic night when she fled from her restaurant? And will the answer change her own life forever?
A haunting and compelling story of love, strength, and sacrifice in Nazi-occupied Paris as one brave young woman risks everything to save the lives of those around her. Fans of The Nightingale, The Paris Library and The Alice Network will lose their hearts to The Last Restaurant in Paris.
Lily Graham is the author of the bestselling, The Child of Auschwitz, The Paris Secret and The Island Villa, among others. Her books have been translated into numerous languages, including French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Turkish.
She grew up in South Africa, and was a journalist for a decade before giving it up to write fiction full time. Her first three novels were lighter, women's fiction, but when she wrote The Island Villa, a story about a secret Jewish community living on the tiny island of Formentera during the Spanish Inquisition, she switched to historical fiction and hasn't quite looked back since.
She lives now in the Suffolk coast with her husband and English bulldog, Fudge. Her latest book, The Flight of Swallows, set in Denmark and Sweden, will be out in January 2021.
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