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Then the German Army arrives. Paris falls. Life for these two people will never be the same. Mathilde is a firebrand. She wants to resist. Mild mannered Jacques is terribly afraid of her getting into trouble with the Nazis. He doesn’t want to lose her. As time passes, Mathilde must leave Paris for her misbehavior. Fortunately a German officer who has been haunting the bookstore gets her a pass to the south of France. But trouble follows her. The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris has a dual timeline it’s set in the city of lights during the 1940's and in present time, and it's told from the two main characters points of view. The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris is another wonderful, heartwarming but heartbreaking historical novel by Daisy Wood which I loved. Set in two timeframes, both were equally devoted to the stories, and they came together beautifully. Often I enjoy one timeframe more than the other, but in this case I thoroughly enjoyed both. This is only my second novel by this author, and I'll be looking at her others. Highly recommended.
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She finds an apartment above a Bookshop, and she decides that she wants to restore the shop and sell books again against the owners 97-year-old Grandmothers wishes. She doesn’t want the past to be dug up. This is a wonderful novel. I especially liked the descriptions about Mathilde and Jacques. Their story is filled with hope and is heartbreaking at the same time. The book is brilliantly written. The reader is transported in time to wartime Paris. The fear of the citizens, the “disappearing” Jewish people and the strength of the human spirit to hope and resist in the face of terrible odds. This is a beautiful read that is set in two time zones of 1940 after the invasion of France and present day with Juliette and husband Kevin. Juliette needed a place to stay and found an apartment above a bookstore and decided to restore the bookstore even though a friend’s grandmother ZiZi who is 97 told her to not dig up the past.I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Many thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for this opportunity. In a word, disappointing. I was happy to review this through Netgalley but this isn’t my sort of story. Primarily a work of historical fiction bouncing between occupied France in WWII and a by the numbers romance set in 2022. Normally historical fiction is my favorite genre but the modern romance is straight out of a Hallmark movie. If you like those cliches and light romances, you’ll most likely enjoy this. It’s very heavy on tropes like a woman fresh out of a bad marriage, starting her life over in the city of romance and meeting a man she’s immediately drawn to. However they end up hating one another when they first meet, getting close while fixing a sink that suddenly bursts, and almost derailing the whole relationship twice because of simple misunderstandings. The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris is a story of love and courage, sacrifice and surrender. It’s a tale of heartbreak and hope as the two lead characters from both timelines are on a journey of self discovery. I highly recommend it as I found it a moving and memorable story. All my life, I’ve been making decisions based on what other people wanted.This adventure is just for me. Is that selfish? Maybe, but I don’t want to wake up in thirty years’ time and realise I’ve wasted my life. We only get one shot–might as well make the most of it.’
At first I was intrigued by how this cliche romance was going to intersect with the story of a couple in occupied France standing up to the Nazi’s. The main link is the bookshop owned initially by the couple in WWII. It lies abandoned now and is taken on by our novel’s heroine. The era and bookshop feel like set pieces for a predictable plot. Part of what bothered me in this story is the privileged and almost oblivious nature of the author and main character. The heroine is asked not to touch the bookstore because of its sad history, but does so anyway. To me it felt disrespectful and clueless. We’re asked to just accept the premise that this woman belongs here. That she’s destined to start a new life in Paris opening this bookstore and anyone who disagrees just doesn’t understand her. As if the other people’s feelings and personal histories weren’t worth as much as the gut instinct of this woman who’s sort of inserted herself in their community. and the end of the story felt rushed. I was left feeling cheated and a bit bitter. This is a bit of a dual storyline with part in 1940's Paris during WWII and part in 2022 Paris. It centers around a bookshop in a Paris square.
The two past and present storylines meld together in a surprising mystery. Included are the tragedies of WWII with the Nazi occupation of Paris and Daisy does a superb job of telling not only the love story of Jacque and Mathilde but also his evolution throughout this experience. The contemporary tale, whilst a well worn trope of marriage breakdown and moving to a new country for rediscovery is well used, with the addition of setting up a bookstore and discovering family heritage, Daisy does a solid job of it. All up is a poignant tale told from many aspects with engaging characters and tribulations to overcome. In the present timeline, you get to follow strong people too. But it felt more like a romance and or women fiction. Juliette has a copy of a scene of a painting that had been in her family's home and her desire is to find out the history behind the painting.
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