Last Twilight in Paris
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4.0 • 39 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
A Parisian department store, a mysterious necklace and a woman’s quest to unlock a decade-old mystery are at the center of this captivating novel of love and survival.
London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before, when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe — and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend Franny during the war.
Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise seeks help from her former boss Ian, with whom she shares a romantic history. The necklace leads them to discover the dark history of Lévitan — a once-glamorous department store that served as a Nazi prison — and Helaine, a woman who was imprisoned there, torn apart from her husband when the Germans invaded France.
Louise races to find the connection between the necklace, the department store and Franny’s death. But nothing is as it seems, and there are forces determined to keep the truth buried forever. Inspired by the true story of Lévitan, Last Twilight in Paris is both a gripping mystery and an unforgettable story about sacrifice, resistance and the power of love to transcend in even the darkest hours.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jenoff (Code Name Sapphire) delivers an artful parallel narrative of an Englishwoman's investigation into her friend's death during WWII, when they both volunteered for the Red Cross in Germany, and a Jewish woman interned in Paris by the Nazis. In 1953, Louise Burns finds a necklace with a heart pendant in a secondhand shop in Henley-on-Thames, and recognizes it as the one acquired by her friend Franny in Germany shortly before she was fatally struck by a car. Louise has always suspected Franny's death was somehow related to the necklace, and after tracing it back to Lévitan, a Paris department store, she travels to France, hoping to track down the necklace's most recent owner. Jenoff alternates Louise's sleuthing with the story of Helaine Weil, a young Jewish woman who defies her parents to marry a musician and winds up imprisoned at Lévitan after the Nazis convert the store to a work camp. As Louise learns of Lévitan's dark history, she uncovers shocking details about the necklace and about Helaine, who gave Franny the necklace before being taken prisoner. Jenoff offers a piercing depiction of Jewish life in Paris under German occupation, and keeps the pages turning with an intriguing mystery. Fans of WWII fiction will be riveted.
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