{Thank you so much to St. Martins Press and Netgalley for the gifted copy in exchange for my honest review}

Paris Never Leaves You is a WWII-era historical fiction that centers around a young woman’s life in Paris with her young daughter during the Occupation. It features a split timeline to also show Charlotte and Vivi’s life about 15 years later in New York City.

This is a tough review for me to write because there were parts of the story that I did enjoy, especially the parts with Charlotte and the German officer, Julian, but so much of the story was a struggle. Charlotte was not a character that I liked. I understand that she was a complex character that was operating in a survival mode while in Paris, but a lot of her motivations and thoughts just did not make sense to me. The shift between the two timelines was also very blurry and would sometimes happen in the middle of chapter and ended up confusing me for some reason.

I would recommend this book to a reader that enjoys WWII historical fiction with a female lead, but it ended up being a miss for my tastes.

2.5 stars!

This novel takes place in 1954, with flashbacks to World War Two in Paris. The main character, Charlotte lived in Paris and was working in a bookstore during the war. Her husband Laurent was killed while fighting and she was raising her young daughter Vivienne on her own. The owner of the bookstore was in a German camp, and Charlotte and her friend Simone ran the store. Charlotte tried to be careful in the actions she took, aware of the need to protect her young daughter, but Simone sometimes took risks, such as setting the clock in the store to Paris time rather than the German time they were supposed to be using. When a German officer begins coming to the bookstore, Charlotte is even more careful, but a couple of situations have her developing a complicated relationship with the young man, Julian Bauer.
In the present, Charlotte has been sponsored by a colleague of her father's, Horace Field, to come to New York and is working as an editor for his publishing company. She is good at her job, and Vivi is growing up to be a loving and thoughtful young woman. Horace and his wife Hannah have not only sponsored them, but given them an apartment in their own home. Hannah is a therapist and has tried to talk to Charlotte about her experiences, but Charlotte keeps her past to herself, not wanting it to follow her into her new life. Horace was injured in the war and is now confined to a wheelchair, but he is still an extremely capable and observant man, and he feels that he and Charlotte have more between them due to their war experiences.
They both have their secrets, but Charlotte is now getting letters from someone in her past, and Hannah seems to be encouraging Vivi to dig into this part of her life as well, causing disputes between Charlotte and her now-teen daughter.
I liked how this book dealt with a character who lived through the Occupation of Paris but wasn't involved in the Resistance, who was just trying to stay alive. The focus on the stresses on ordinary people was one not often seen in fiction of this time period. There is also some guilt that Charlotte carries from this time that has some complexity to it, and that she needs to deal with to be able to truly move forward with her life.
Definitely recommend this one.

WWII historical fiction books are my new favorite and I really looked forward to reading this book. You will experience life through Charlotte and her daughter, Vivi’s, time during WWII and after they escape to the United States. It was interesting to read about the anti-semitism views in the US and something I was aware of, but had not given much thought. It made my heart ache to think of the prejudices Vivi experienced.

The author does a great job of handling the back-and-forth of the two timelines. I enjoyed that Vivi is encouraged to discover more about her heritage which, in turn, forces Charlotte to face her past and reveal her secrets. Very moving story that I really enjoyed!

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Griffin for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

I really tried getting into this book, as it had promised a lot of what I love to read about: historical fiction, romance, books... However, it just ended up not being a book for me. The pacing was slow, somber and thoughtful, but a tad redundant, and I struggled to keep myself focused on the novel. I pushed through to finish it because I didn't want to give it a DNF, but ultimately I didn't connect with the story-lines and therefore the entirety of the novel.

Great read! The author draws you in with detail that makes you want to read on. I love when books making you feel like you are part of the story.

Can you ever really leave your past behind? Do secrets ever remain hidden forever? Charlotte, a young widow, made hard choices in order to survive during her and her young daughter's time living in an occupied France during WWII. Alternating between past and present, Paris Never Leaves You is Charlotte's and Vivenne's story making their way in present day New York during the 1950's. Now age fourteen, Viv is asking questions about the father she never knew and their time living in occupied Paris. As Charlotte's memories of that time haunt her, readers learn about the dark time period and what a young widow did to assure her and her daughter's survival. She struggles with how to answer her daughter's questions while still guarding the secrets she carries. Charlotte fled Paris leaving everything and everyone behind her. Will she lose everything she's worked for if the truth comes out?

Paris Never Leaves You is a good historical read featuring people who consider themselves survivors, not victims. The transition between time periods is well-defined and easy to follow. The plight of the people moved to liberation camps for minor offences evokes empathy as does their journey to a new land and life. I had a difficult time fully connecting with the main characters. I wanted to feel more sympathy for Charlotte and her dilemma, but I couldn't find it. I could sympathize with her situation, but never connected with her emotionally. The introduction of some characters later in the story broke my concentration making for a bit of a bumpy read. I think it's probably one of those cases of "it's me, not the book". Ultimately, Paris Never Leaves You is a story of survival, sacrifice, choices, what you can live with and what you can't. I encourage fans of historical fiction to give this one a shot!

We loved it - from the harsh realities of surviving the war in Paris to rebuilding life in New York City. Paris Never Leaves You is emotional, heartbreaking and real. For any historical fiction fan, especially if you enjoy World War II - this is a must-read.

Paris Never Leaves You is a dual timeline set in Paris during WW2 and New York City after the war. Charlotte is a young mother of a toddler during the war and struggles to survive. It felt unbelievable to me that Charlotte and her friend, Simone, would be running a bookstore of a Jew who had been taken into custody. This was just one of the issues that I had with this book.

The story of Charlotte and Julian in Paris was a beautiful story that I think could have carried the entire book if it had been elaborated and extended. Where I felt the story of Charlotte and Horace was not needed and added nothing but distraction to the book.

In addition, the format of the story was atrocious. It was confusing when Charlotte would be in one time period thinking about the other time period and there would be no transition or hint that this change was coming. Many times I found this confusing. It felt like parts of the story were missing.

The story in Paris was a 4 star read and the NYC part was only 2 stars for an average of 3.

The title seems to hint at a love story - maybe even a tragic one. This is however a story of secrets and survival set in alternating cities and times.
Charlotte works in a bookstore in 40's occupied Paris. Food is very scarce and Bosche soldiers are everywhere. Fear is the only thing in abundance. Charlotte struggle to keep the bookstore open, keep very young daughter Vivi fed and herself out of a concentration camp.
Charlotte works as a manuscript reader in a publishing house in 1950's New York. Charlotte and Vivi had been sponsored by Hannah and Horace Field and are living in an apartment in their own house.
Life seems so much better. But there are secrets. Vivi is asking about Paris, her father, her religion - Charlotte has to come to terms with the past. Of course there are current issues too.
For me the story lacked tension and didn't hold my attention, Issues were resolved easily. Suffering seemed superficial. The dual storylines did not seem to involve each other. Chapters seemed to be randomly placed. The chapters were flat.
I received an advance copt of this book from NetGalley. #NetGalley #ParisNeverLeavesYou

3.5 Another World War II story but a tad different from others, by focusing more on the main character than on the atrocities. The novel begins in occupied Paris. Charlotte, the main character, is a young war widow raising a very young child, Vivi, both on the verge of starvation due to the rationing and scarcity of food and poor living conditions at the time. Charlotte developed a love for books and reading through her father, a left leaning publisher, and is no surprise she is working at a friend's bookstore in Paris. A young Nazi doctor befriends Charlotte, providing food when it was scarce and medical and other attention to her and her daughter, "saving" her from possibly being rounded up, and even assisting her and Vivi's escape from Paris near the end of the war, where she likely would be subject to charges of collaboration with the enemy and denigration and physical assault from Parisians angry at "collaborators" no matter the reason. The second part of the story focuses on Charlotte's life in New York. Through the sponsorship of a publishing friend of her father, Charlotte goes to New York and works as an editor in his publishing house in NYC in the 1950s (and living at his palatial home), and the novel then focuses on her and Vivi's life there and issues surrounding secrets, religious identity, mother daughter conflict, and choices made and the ensuing consequences, good and bad. Many themes circulate throughout the book: secrets, survival and survival guilt, betrayal, love, compassion, loyalty, the struggle with values, resilience, choices (what is right or what is wrong ). The novel was interesting in a historical context level yet failed to truly engage me on the reality of the story. Too many things were coming at once and it just didn't gel.

Charlotte Foret is a woman living in Occupied France during World War II. She likes to say that "It had taken Hitler to maker her a Jew." With the help of a German soldier, she was able to survive that difficult time and make it to America with her daughter Vivi. Now working for a publishing house in New York and living at the top of her boss's building, she must navigate life with the questions her daughter has about the past and her future. The story goes back and forth from war time in 1942 and Charlotte's life 10 years later in 1952. Will Charlotte be able to answer her daughters questions, and why is everything such a big secret.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.

Historical Fiction is not one of my favorite genres, but every once in a while there is a book that really grabs your attention and sucks you in. This book wasn't that at first for me. I think what drew me to the story initially was her working in publishing in New York. That has always been a dream of mine. About 30% of the way through the book, I started to get interested in Charlotte and her past. It was very interesting. Books have been a part of her life, her whole life. Her father was in publishing and she is working at a bookstore in France and then full circle she gets to America and is in publishing.

Charlotte's story starts off really well and then takes a turn it really didn't have to in order for the story to be great. I don't want to go into more, without giving away too much. Overall, this book is about escaping, forbidden love, building a new life, loving your daughter, and facing the truths of your life.

Summary: After nearly four years of Nazi occupation, the people of Paris are emotionally drained and starving. The German soldiers in the city, sensing the end of their rule, are increasingly cruel to the French. Citizens are harassed, rounded up, shot or sent to the camps. The tension is so great that Parisians are turning on each other, making accusations and killing their fellow citizens for reasons based on nothing but rumor. The primary allegation against the victims of the mobs is collaboration.

In 1944, Charlotte Foret and her baby daughter, Vivi, are struggling to survive. They work in a bookshop owned by her friend, Simone. Charlotte’s husband was killed in the war. Charlotte, Vivi, Simone and her young daughter live on the money from the meager book sales and their special ration cards, but food is still in extremely short supply. They they are slowly starving to death.

A German soldier begins to quietly frequent the bookshop. He says he is a doctor and helps Vivi through an illness. After Simone is taken by the Germans, Charlotte reluctantly accepts the doctor’s small gifts of food and his friendship. It is the only way they can survive. In the definition of the mobs, she is a collaborator.

Many years later, teenage Vivi is searching for her identity. Charlotte, who has buried her past, comes face to face with her guilt for what she did to survive the war in Paris.

Comments: For me, the central theme of Paris Never Leaves You is guilt, both survivor’s guilt and Catholic guilt. I’ve been fortunate enough to never experience the former, but I sure know a lot about the latter. My mother was fiercely Catholic and sent me to Catholic School in the 60’s and 70’s for thirteen years (including Kindergarten).

I fully related to Charlotte’s inability to forgive herself and move on with her life. After the war, she became an emotional wraith, just passing through life without really living it. While physical present and functional, she lived in the past, unable to form attachments beyond her unduly protective relationship with her daughter, Vivi.

I’ve read several other women in WWII novels, but none quite like this one. Where most of them feature a heroine character drawn from real life, Paris Never Leaves You is about ordinary people just trying to survive in an extraordinary time.

Highly recommended for readers of Historical Fiction, General Fiction, Women’s Fiction and stories about World War II.

The war is over, but the past is never past

Living through WWII working in a Paris bookstore with her young daughter, Vivi, and fighting for her life, Charlotte is no victim, she is a survivor. But can she survive the next chapter of her life?

Alternating between wartime Paris and 1950s New York publishing, Paris Never Leaves You is an extraordinary story of resilience, love, and impossible choices, exploring how survival never comes without a cost.

I really wanted this book to work for me, but it didn´t. I had difficulty putting the timelines together, this made the story hard to follow and very confusing. Maybe it was just my case. It is Paris and a Bookstore so it´s worth a try.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book provides an interesting but well-done perspective on WWII. In the book, which moves between the war in Paris and the 1950’s in the publishers’ New York, we follow Charlotte. Living through the war is not easy, and, to survive, Charlotte must make choices that may come back to haunt her later. After the war, living in New York, Charlotte and her daughter have managed to put the past behind them (or so it seems) and are managing to live a fairly good life. However, things are not really as they seem. Charlotte lives in the past a lot and does not have a good relationship with her now teenage daughter. Plus, they just do not seem to have that many friends. As the author intended, this is not a book about heroes, but one about ordinary people. Charlotte and her daughter lived through a difficult time, which marked them forever. I found Charlotte to be ordinary, as the author intended. Still, she has her secrets, some of which are exposed and which impact things. The book was fascinating, though not particularly exciting or thrilling. I am not sure whether I liked Charlotte though I found of lot what she did interesting. I guess one never really knows or understands unless one is living through life others are. The book was a good read, and I found some of the things mentioned or discussed interesting and thought-provoking. I received this from NetGalley to read and review.

A Woman Survives in Paris During WWII

During WWII in Paris, Charlotte lives with her young daughter, Vivi, and works in a bookshop. She sees terrible things happen to women who collaborated with the Nazis, but she can’t help accepting food for Vivi from a German officer.

Now in New York in the 1950s, Charlotte works for a publisher, Horace. He and his wife Hannah sponsored her to come to the US. She’s grateful, but when Vivi starts asking questions about Paris and the war, she wonders if her secrets will come out.

Charlotte is an interesting character. She’s a survivor, but you can’t help wondering if she took the easy way out to survive. One shouldn’t judge. WWII in Paris was a nightmare, but it made me feel a little uncomfortable about Charlotte.

Antisemitism was prevalent in the US in the 1950s. Unlike many books about WWII and the aftermath, this book didn’t shy away from the problems and how it affected people’s lives, in this case the teenage Vivi.

I thought the author did a good job presenting the background in Paris during the war and in NY. It made the book very interesting. The descriptions of the settings made the actions of the characters much more real and understandable.

I received this book from St. Martin’s Press for this review.

Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, especially when the storyline includes France. Although I was excited to read these novel, I was disappointed in its execution. The storyline and characters fell felt for me. I appreciate the opportunity to read an advanced reader’s copy in return for an honest review.

I don't know what it is about books set in Paris during the Occupation, but they always suck me in. This story was very unique in many ways and so that made me want to keep turning the pages, intrigued. I found so much of it fascinating. There are two time lines, WWII Paris and post WWII 1950's in New York City, both about Charlotte and her daughter Vivi. Charlotte gives birth to Vivi on the day the Nazi's arrive Paris. Charlotte's husband is away fighting, so she's all alone in the city with only her friend and her daughter. They are working in a bookstore. One day a Nazi Wehrmacht officer, a doctor, Julian Bauer comes in to purchase a book. He starts to become a regular customer, quite unnerving for Charlotte, but also helpful during the time of deprivation and when Vivi gets very sick. There are plenty of secrets throughout the book and whole story is just so compelling you want to keep reading. Charlotte and her daughter survive and make their way to New York with the help of a friend of Charlotte's father, who is in publishing. Charlotte begins working as an editor and Vivi grows into a teenager, who starts asking tough questions of her mother, about what happened to them during the war. Charlotte really struggles with her memories and what she perceives as sins she committed, especially when she receives a letter from South America about Dr. Julian Bauer. One of my favorite characters in the book was the friend who sponsors Charlotte and Vivi, who is her boss at the publishing house, Horace. He is just the thing Charlotte needs to release herself from her memories and he will finally be able to release himself in the process. I received a Netgalley ARC from the St. Martins and the author and I look forward to reading others by Ms. Feldman. #ParisNeverLeavesYou

The setting of WII Paris and ten years later in NYC are the two world that we move into. There are a lot of secrets throughout the book so this will be short, it's a different style of book for WII- which was a nice change for me. You get a story you don't hear about- parts I had no clue. We learn just how far a mother will go. The power of love and relationships are big in this one.

We also get bookstore and publishing house for backdrops.

Loved the writing and style for this book.

Overall, 4 stars and 2 steam

This story told in alternating decades drew me in early on. I cared for Bruno’s characters; admiring their resiliency and loyalty. I didn’t think I was yet ready to read another WWII related story as I’ve read so many but this was different enough. I enjoyed it and walked away content with learning something new about past history.

Charlotte survives World War II in Paris. She has a daughter and works in a bookstore with her friend who one day disappears as people do with the Germans being in control. Julian a German soldier who is also a physician is taking care of Vivi when she returns to the store after going for food. He helps her all he can and as the Germans are leaving send her to a concentration camp as a Jew to save her.
Charlotte and Vivi come to New York where Charlotte works in a publishing house. They have been saved by a couple who take them in and he is her boss at the publishing house. Charlotte has guilt. This story takes you from how she acquired the guilt to how she gets past it.