Reviewed by Emma Crowley
But when their secret is discovered and her beloved husband is torn from her arms, Antoinette’s heart breaks. She knows she must act quickly if she is to save her son from the same fate. Desperate, she asks the Resistance to secure him a place on the last train leaving Paris. Holding him tightly against her chest, she promises she will find him again. But is it a promise she can’t possibly keep?
Alone and with nothing left to lose, when the Resistance ask her to use her musical talent to spy on high-ranking Nazis, Antoinette doesn’t hesitate. Playing her violin at elaborate dinner parties each night gives her the opportunity to listen to their conversations. And although she risks her life every day, it is the only way to get her family back.
But when a Nazi commander makes advances towards her, Antoinette realizes that she will have to make a dangerous and impossible choice. Can she find the strength to do the unthinkable, in the hopes that it will save her family, and countless other innocent lives?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Paris Promise to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Paris Promise is the third in The Paris Sisters series by Suzanne Kelman where it is now the time to learn of Antoinette’s story. It is a story full of secrets, bravery, sacrifice, persistence and strength as Antoinette is placed in an untenable situation where she must do things that are against everything she stands for and believes in. The plot reveals itself through the dual timeline format moving back and forth between Paris during World War Two and Wales/Brazil in 2012. The two timelines blend well together and there is plenty of mystery and suspense. There are innumerable twists and turns throughout the plot and I was convinced I had figured out fairly on what was going on but then the author threw a spanner in the works which had me completely thrown off track and I was a disappointed I hadn’t been correct. But then further along came another surprise and in fact I had been right initially but it’s the clever way in which this was written that has the reader believing one thing at one point and then within a chapter everything is turned on its head. At the heart of this book is a good thriller of sorts but not so much that it ventures down the path of the crime genre instead it combines perfectly with the suffering, pain, anguish and devotion that Antoinette has for her beloved husband Rene.
There is but a brief mention of the two sisters who featured in books one and two of the series so readers discovering these books for the first time needn’t worried that they wont be able to follow what is going on. Rather than the books being a direct continuation the stories stand their own ground and can be read separately. Antoinette and her husband Rene are both musicians and they lead an idyllic life with their son Benjamin until the Nazi’s invaded the City of Light and the colour was drained from the city they adored. A relentless machine of hatred has been created and with Rene being Jewish the target is very much on their backs. But Antoinette is wilful, powerful and has a passion for life and love which radiates through her every action, thought, word and deed. She is determined to stand up for what is right and just and even more so when Rene is part of a number of people arrested at a recital at the conservatoire and taken away to a camp. Antoinette can’t let the love of her life be taken just like that without a fight and boy does she fight with every ounce of tenacity that she possess.
Love is a characteristic that Antoinette carries with her every day and she knows that the bond she has with Rene is unbreakable. She will try her utmost to reunite with him even though it will cause her to venture down a dark and dangerous path and people will change their perception of her but if they knew the truth behind what drives her on then they would never judge her for it. She faces the harshest of times as she starts work for the Resistance working as a violinist in the Majestic Hotel which is the favourite haunt of the Nazi’s. She aims to be quiet and unassuming and hopefully will go undetected and in that way many titbits of vital information can be passed onto her colleagues in the Resistance movement which hopefully could free those who have been captured or even derail some of the Nazi’s future plans. But things start to get a little too close for comfort when she catches the eye of Otto Von Falkenberg.
Otto was menacing and creepy and I detested the way that Antoinette became beholden to him. It was like she was trapped within his grip and struggling to break free but at the same time she knew she had to play along with what he wanted even if it went against every fibre in her being. He became far too overly familiar with her and it read as if he thought this was his genuine right and Antoinette had to do whatever he wished whenever he asked. I thought it was remarkable that Antoinette was physically in that situation but mentally she could remove herself from what she was forced to engage in. It was a dangerous and unstable path that she was threading but she was very much conscious of not losing herself in the process. She had one ultimate goal and she never lost sight of what it was despite all the obstacles that were hurled in her direction. There was a major plot twist around the midway point and I felt it came too early for Antoinette’s aspect of the storyline and after that although she continued to be brave I just felt her story peetered out a bit and the present day storyline became much more dominant.
I thoroughly enjoyed the modern day storyline. It was very well written and really held my attention. But what I will say is that I found too much was given away in that we learned about Antoinette through Deana and I felt I was given too much info too soon because then we would go back to 1941 and instead of things being a surprise I was expecting things to happen. Now this didn’t happen all the time but it was something that was niggling away at me at certain points. Deanna is the granddaughter of Antoinette who when clearing her fathers attic so he can move into an assisted living facility discovers a very rare Stradivarius violin. Her grandmother hadn’t been wealthy or had connections. Had it been a gift or is there something darker behind it and there is something in her grandmother’s past that she knows nothing about. Advice is sought from her close friend Felicity who works in Sotheby’s and a mission soon ensues to discover who is the rightful owner of this most precious violin. Here is where the mystery and intrigue starts and the author has you guessing just exactly what is going on and questioning how did Antoinette come to be in possession of a violin that will play such a crucial and divisive role in the overall plot?
Deanna’s quest takes her and Felicity to Brazil of all places and I came to appreciate that a very good World War Two story was unfolding and one that didn’t need to feature the concentration camps in order to get the message across. I won’t say any more as to what happens in Brazil but suffice to say Deanna is just like her grandmother in that she won’t rest until she has all the answers. She knows to delve deeper than the superficial surface layers of first appearances and she never underestimates her powers of intuition. I liked her for this. There was a danger that a cliched romance element was beginning to appear for Deanna and I had my fingers crossed that it wouldn’t materialise because in my mind it didn’t feel natural but would have been contrived given the overall situation and how things unfolded. Deanna confronts the past in order to heal the present and does so with strength and an unbreakable spirit just like her grandmother all those years ago.
The Paris Promise was another great read from Suzanne Kelman, I just hope that this isn’t the last we have heard from the sisters as I think there is still at least one more sister to read about. All in all, it was very well written and researched and a little bit different from the usual World War Two historical fiction that I read which can only be a good thing.
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