Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Paris Network by Siobhan Curham which is published today in paperback and as an ebook. My thanks to Sarah Hardy for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Bookouture for my digital review copy via NetGalley. Do check out the posts by my tour buddies for today, Sharon and Emma at Shaz’s Book Blog, Nat at Nat’s Bookish Corner and Julie at Bookish Jottings.
About the Book
Paris, 1940: He pressed the tattered book into her hands. ‘You must go to the café and ask at the counter for Pierre Duras. Tell him that I sent you. Tell him you’re there to save the people of France.’
Sliding the coded message in between the crisp pages of the hardback novel, bookstore owner Laurence slips out into the cold night to meet her resistance contact, pulling her woollen beret down further over her face. The silence of the night is suddenly shattered by an Allied plane rushing overhead, its tail aflame, heading down towards the forest. Her every nerve stands on end. She must try to rescue the pilot.
But straying from her mission isn’t part of the plan, and if she is discovered it won’t only be her life at risk…
America, years later: When Jeanne uncovers a dusty old box in her father’s garage, her world as she knows it is turned upside down. She has inherited a bookstore in a tiny French village just outside of Paris from a mysterious woman named Laurence.
Travelling to France to search for answers about the woman her father has kept a secret for years, Jeanne finds the store tucked away in a corner of the cobbled main square. Boarded up, it is in complete disrepair. Inside, she finds a tiny silver pendant hidden beneath the blackened, scorched floorboards.
As Jeanne pieces together Laurence’s incredible story, she discovers a woman whose bravery knew no bounds. But will the truth about who Laurence really is shatter Jeanne’s heart, or change her future?
Format: Paperback (414 pages) Publisher: Bookouture
Publication date: 15th February 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction
Find The Paris Network on Goodreads
Purchase links
Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme
My Review
I was first introduced to the writing of Siobhan Curham when I read Beyond This Broken Sky in April 2021. Like the earlier book, The Paris Network alternates between two timelines. The first, set in 1993, concerns Jeanne who, following the death of her mother, discovers that her father has a secret in his past, one that directly affects her. The second is set in wartime France in which the reader witnesses the events following the occupation of France by the Nazis through the eyes of Laurence, owner of a bookshop called The Book Dispensary.
I confess I wasn’t completely won over by the dual timeline structure. Perhaps because Laurence’s story was so powerful or because it was written in the first person, the sections concerning Jeanne felt very much secondary and I found myself eager to immerse myself again in Laurence’s story.
In her author’s note, Siobhan describes how her discovery of the important role books played during the German occupation of France inspired the writing of The Paris Network. As a booklover myself, this was an aspect of the book I really enjoyed. I loved the idea of Laurence dispensing literary ‘prescriptions’ to her customers in the form of books, or more often poems, individually tailored to their circumstances; to provide comfort, inspiration or solace. It’s just one way the author demonstrates the essential role that books play in Laurence’s life. They also provide her with sustenance through dark times. In fact, at one point she says, ‘Today for lunch I am dining on an appetiser of Little Women before a hearty feast of Flaubert’. This is all the more poignant given the food shortages the people of Laurence’s village experience as the German stranglehold on the population increases.
Books also become a form of resistance as Laurence creates a book club who read works of literature banned by the Nazis, including those illicitly published by the Resistance movement. (A list of the poems and books that feature can be found at the end of the book.) But Laurence is also inspired by General de Gaulle’s rallying call to the people of France to carry out other acts of resistance: secretly listening to BBC radio broadcasts even though radios are banned, painting V for victory signs or the word ‘Liberty’ on buildings, carrying coded messages and delivering leaflets for the Resistance or defying petty rules such as the ban on drinking wine on Sundays or the wearing of trousers by women.
However, acts of resistance have consequences and German reprisals for acts of sabotage or in defiance of rules are increasingly swift and savage, as Laurence discovers. Wartime relationships often form quickly and can be fleeting. Such is the case for Laurence. Facing a heartbreaking choice, she has to channel all the strength and courage of her heroine Joan of Arc. As Jeanne and her father Wendell put together the final pieces of Laurence’s story, I was reminded of a famous quotation from Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities.
In three words: Emotional, dramatic, absorbing
Try something similar: Resistance by Eilidh McGinness
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About the Author
Siobhan Curham is an award-winning author, ghost writer, editor and writing coach. She has also written for many newspapers, magazines and websites, including The Guardian, Breathe magazine, Cosmopolitan, Writers’ Forum, DatingAdvice.com, and Spirit & Destiny. Siobhan has been a guest on various radio and TV shows, including Woman’s Hour, BBC News, GMTV and BBC Breakfast. And she has spoken at businesses, schools, universities and literary festivals around the world, including the BBC, Hay Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Bath Festival, Ilkley Festival, London Book Fair and Sharjah Reading Festival.
Connect with Siobhan
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About the Book
About the Author
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