Star Crossed

For readers of The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah who are hungry for a non-fiction account of Nazi-occupied Paris, Star Crossed is an epic true story of love and resistance during WWII from the award-winning author of 999. Part historical portrait of life during the Occupation, part valentine to The City of Light and the resilience of its people, this true love story follows the romance between the Romeo and Juliet of war-torn Paris – a Catholic Resistance fighter and a Holocaust victim who meet at the famous Café Flore before war, prejudice, and disapproving families set them on divergent and tragically inevitable paths.

Paris, 1940. The City of Light has fallen under German Occupation. Among patriotic Parisians, the pursuit of art, culture, and jazz have become bold acts of defiance. So has forbidden romance for talented and spirited Jewish teenager Annette Zelman, a student at the Beaux-Arts, and dashing young Catholic poet Jean Jausion. Despite their devout families’ vehement opposition, the young couple finds acceptance at the famed Café de Flore, whose habitues include Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, Django Reinhardt, and other luminaries of the Latin Quarter’s creative world.

For a time, Annette and Jean feel they have eluded the brute might of the relentless Nazis -- and more immediately, their parents’ threats and demands. But as restrictions on the Jewish community escalate to arrests and deportations, the maleficent forces gathering around the young lovers set them on divergent and tragically inevitable paths.

Drawn from never-before-published family letters and other treasures, as well as archival sources and exclusive interviews, Star-Crossed offers us precious insight into the Holocaust and the lives French people bravely led under the Hitler regime. This breathtaking true story of beauty, art, liberation, and the transformative power of love resonates with an intimate story of undying devotion, seen through the prism of history.