The settings in this story were so picturesque. It made me fall in love with the charm of Paris and England all over again. The story flips between two timelines, highlighting present day and also diary entries written by Ivy. The underlying premise reminded me so much of Midnight in Paris (with Ivy meeting famous authors and artists). All in all, I enjoyed reading this one and loved being transported back in time. Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for this e-ARC for my honest review.

Love and Loss Across Generations
This is a great piece of women's fiction. I don't want to spoil the story, so I will be careful how I say this. This is the awesome story of how one's actions create a ripple across the next several generations. This story has the 'feel' of a true story. All of the characters are deep, filled out, and sound like people I know. The circumstances across all of their lives also sound true-to-life. I loved this story and will think about it for a while. I know that I will read it again. I received this ARC book for free from Net Galley and this is my honest review.

There were many parts about this story that I really liked. The mother/daughter relationship. Travel. History. The mystery and intrigue of apartment in Paris. Overall this is a great story that takes place in modern day and also in 1920's to 1940's in Paris. So many interesting historical figures and moral dilemmas. The main character works for a company giving historical Jane Austen tours. I would overall give the book a 3.5 star rating. The only reason I rounded down vs up were a few details that just didn't add up to me. Granted this is an ARC and I may change my opinion when the final book is released. My biggest concern is that the book ends in May 2020 with tourism booming and we all know (as we have just lived through it) that in May 2020 the world was shut down and tourism was not booming. I hope that the final edits will just change the year which would not matter in the overall story, but would have set better with me as a reader.

I loved getting wrapped up in this book. The mother/daughter relationship between Hannah and Marla was heartwarming to watch repair. Even though Marla acted more like the child, I enjoyed her and found her endearing...in all her ridiculousness.

I loved going back to Ivy’s diary and pretending to be in the 1920’s with the expats! What a time to be alive and a part of!

I honestly loved every aspect of this book and would recommend for a lighthearted read where you get swept away in Paris ❤️

Thank you to @netgalley and @gallerybooks for this arc!

I wish I could give this 4.5 stars. It is surprising and lovely. It’s a glorious mix of family drama, love story, and homage to the Paris ex-pats. Once I started it, I didn’t want to put it down.

Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson is full of history, mystery, quests, family drama, and a touch of romance. A captivating story that pulls you in and leaves you wanting more.

This book had a lot going on. The main character is Hannah, who does Jane Austen tours in England and is unsettled in her life. She has had a back breakup, her mother is a mess/absentee, and her beloved grandmother has died. She and her mother discover that they have inherited an apartment in Paris and the story goes from there. I felt like much of it was discombulated - diary entries from Hannah's great grandmother are interspersed with the main story and make the story choppy. I also thought the diary entries were jarring as they were not really written in the style you'd expect from the time. There are a lot of characters introduced in the main story and it winds around trying to get to the point. I'm not totally sure how I felt about the ending. This book may be leaving me with more questions than answers. 2.5 stars.

This is a perfectly charming mother/daughter story set in one of my favorite cities in the world (…Paris, natch).

When we meet Hannah, she’s giving a Jane Austen-themed tour in Britain (…sounds right up Elizabeth’s alley, amirite). As the synopsis says, her estranged mother appears on her doorstep and the proverbial shit hits the fan (pardon my…French). Hannah is incredibly wary of her mother, and we learn a bit more about where her trust issues come from throughout the novel.

To slightly reiterate the synopsis, they discover that Hannah’s great-grandmother (Marla’s grandmother) owned an apartment in Paris and it’s now been passed to them since Marla’s mother recently passed away. Suspending belief that things like property taxes would have been paid in perpetuity and keeping up w/ inflation (…OK), Marla and Hannah now just owe an inheritance tax on the apartment. Of course, because great-grandma Ivy fled Paris in early 1940 due to impending Nazi invasion, the apartment is perfectly preserved under a massive layer of dust and Hannah discovers Ivy’s diaries.

The narrative flips back and forth between diary entries spanning 13 or so years (1927, when Ivy arrived in Paris, through 1940) and present-day (2020). I did have a good laugh at the below passage, early on in the novel:

January 1, 2020—11 :00 a.m. London, England. The next morning, the sun smiles at me through the window of my upstairs bedroom, bestowing the promise of a brand new year. A brand new decade.

Sigh.

Anyway.

The diary entries really bring you into late 1920s Paris, a time period I know is pretty famous but still don’t know much about. Of course, Ivy encountered your Gertrude Steins and your Zelda Fitzgeralds etc etc, and Hannah and Marla discover she was in a relationship with a now-famous writer. And in present-day, Hannah and Marla zip back and forth between London and Paris at a rate that makes me incredibly jealous, as they navigate the logistics of owning an apartment in the City of Lights and a potentially important literary discovery in the apartment. Of course, family secrets are unearthed and Marla and Hannah’s relationship seems to mend awfully quickly given how estranged they were at the novel’s beginning.

A quick, fun read!

This was a sweet enjoyable story. It was easy to read and full of characters and plot points that, even if not the most original, were heartfelt and endearing. It was a quick read, as Thompson's writing style is easy going and engaging. I liked the back-and-forth in time and point of view, and found it a great way to present the two storylines. If it times it felt a little convenient, particularly in the discovery of the last few letters that tidily filled in all the blanks, it was nevertheless a fun read and I would certainly pick up her books again.

Lost in Paris | Elizabeth Thompson
4.5/5 stars!

This was such a cute and enticing women's fiction and historical fiction book!
"When a deed to an apartment in Paris turns up in an old attic trunk, an estranged mother and daughter must reunite to uncover the secret life of a family matriarch."

Synopsis:
Hannah Bond, the daughter of Marla Bond, is living in London when her grandmother passes away. Marla takes on the task of cleaning out her mother's house in Florida. Given the mother and daughter's fractured relationship, Hannah is shocked when Marla shows up in London with the key and deed to an apartment in Paris that Martha found while cleaning out the house. They discover that this apartment was left to them by Ivy, Hannah's great-grandmother, and Marla's grandmother.
When they step foot into the Paris apartment, frozen in the 1940s, they realize that all of the dust is covering the secrets to their grandma/great-grandmother's life they knew nothing about.
Putting their differences aside, the two women embark on a journey to find out what happened in this apartment and Paris, and why Ivy never mentioned it to them!

Thoughts:
This book was BEAUTIFULLY written. I thoroughly enjoyed the dual timelines between the modern-day chapters and excerpts from Ivy's diary. The entries give us a glimpse into a young women's life in Paris in the 1920s, up until the 1940s when WWII began. This was a page-turner for me, dying to know more about Ivy's secret life!

What I Loved:
The descriptions and details in this book were magnificent - I really felt transported to a life in Paris!
The aspect of a mother and daughter working through their differences to learn more about their family history!
Very well-developed characters and plot!
I felt the story resolved well in the end.
I had a connection to the main characters, which is what we all crave!
Women empowerment themes throughout.
It is evident that a ton of research was done to create a historically accurate book!

Bottom Line: This story was fun, gripping, emotional, and very satisfying! This is contending for one of my favorite books in a while! I think it will be really popular in 2021!

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Hannah has a troubled relationship with her mother, Marla, who abandoned her for long periods of time when she was young, leaving her to be raised by her grandmother. Now her grandmother is dead, and Hannah has forged a happy life for herself in London, Marla safely far away in Orlando settling the grandmother’s estate.

Then Marla shows up in London with the amazing news that they may also own an apartment in Paris.

Told in dual time periods through diary entries of Ivy, Hannah’s great-grandmother, who lived in Paris from 1927-1940, and a contemporary setting, LOST IN PARIS is an absorbing story. Truth be told, after 14 months of quarantine, who doesn’t want to travel vicariously to London and Paris and imagine the amazing good fortune of inheriting an apartment? Both Marla and Hannah learn truths about their family, themselves, and their ancestors. As an archivist, I cringed a few times over the cavalier handling of the manuscript at the center of the book, even if the characters wore gloves when handling it. The resolution of the book seemed too quick with a few irrelevant subplots, but overall, I liked this book a good bit. #LostInParis #NetGalley

Give me a Paris setting, present or past, I'm all in! Descriptions of Paris always transport me to another place and time.
This was a fast paced, fun, and intriguing read.

Secret places!

I love descriptions of those Interbellum years of the 1920’s and 30’s where there was a buzz in the air. Paris was bursting with creativity—artists, writers, designers, Gertrude Stein, the Fitzgerald’s, Picasso, the Hemingway’s!
And into this world fell Ivy in pursuit of her dream to enter a Paris fashion house. Well that didn’t work out, but she did meet writer Andres Armand.
Her great granddaughter Hannah has a bad relationship (think zero) with her mother Marla, doesn’t know who her father is and has just lost her Gram who brought her up. To cap it all off she’s just broken up with her boyfriend
What is it about the romance of a hidden apartment left as though people had just walked out waiting for their return.? It gets me every time. I thought I’d grow tired of this trope—I haven’t as yet! The mystery pulls us in. And to find it is unexpectedly yours, to find a great grandmother with a secret life is both shocking and exciting, as Hannah and her mother discover.
Moving between 1929 and 2019 this story captures that shock with a few extra layers, and with burdens that need to be laid down. Mind you Marla is a huge challenge, although I move between giving her the benefit of the doubt and just being cross.
Hannah Bond’s search for meaning, for redefining her relationship with her mother, for the woman her Great Grandma Ivy was, and for finding her own way forward is brilliantly portrayed.

A Gallery Books ARC via NetGalley
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson is a beautifully written novel that was very enjoyable to read. This is a story about inheritance and the dynamics between an estranged mother daughter relationship! Also included is family drama, romance, history and a lot of secrets to keep you reading. There is also forgiveness and acceptance mixed in! The story takes place in Paris and Thompson’s vivid descriptions will whisk you away and make you feel like you are right there! You will be totally engaged when reading this book and unable to put it down! I recommend you take a trip to Paris if only for a few hours and read this wonderful book!

Thank you NetGalley and Gallery books for an ARC of this beautiful book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Gallery Books for an advanced copy of Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson.

Lost in Paris is a women's fiction with a side of historical fiction. A dual timeline in current day London/Paris and 1920-30s Paris. Hannah lives in London and leads Jane Austen themed tours around the country. She doesn't have the best relationship with her mother and is surprised when Marla shows up with an envelope. The envelope contains a deed to an apartment in Paris with a key that belonged to Hannah's great grandmother Ivy..

They decide to go to Paris to figure out what to do and they find the apartment hasn't been touched since 1940 including her old diaries. In the diaries she shares stories of moving to Paris and trying to find a seamstress job at an atelier and stories with now famous authors who were in Paris in the 1920s such as Hemingway and the Fitzgeralds.

We see the relationship between Hannah and her mother grow as they try to determine what to do and why Ivy kept all of this secret from their family.

This was a fun book to read and I liked reading about 1920s Paris. I had to suspend a little reality that the apartment wouldn't have been touched in 80 years. But I liked that this wasn't a WWII historical fiction, but more about family relationships.

I loved being transported to Paris both in the past and present. Author Elizabeth Thompson’s descriptions of all the settings are wonderful. The cafes, the bars, the apartment untouched for decades. The story is engaging and emotional. I was equally taken by the present day story of Hannah and Marla as with Ivy’s, making this book appealing to those who read both contemporary and historical fiction. This fast-paced book has it all - family, secrets, love, second chances, Paris. I didn’t want it to end.

Rated 4.25 stars.

Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson was a wonderful story about the resiliency of love and hope. Hannah Bond left home and lives in England leading Jane Austen Themed Tours. Her mother, Marla, who is always difficult, showed up at Hannah’s flat without warning on a quest. It seemed that a letter was found in a trunk in Hannah’s childhood home. The letter contained a deed and a key to an apartment in Paris.

Hannah and her mother decided to go to Paris and check it out. With the apartment and some newspaper clippings, Hannah and Marlo investigate what happened and why the apartment was left as it was. They find clues to the life of Great-Grandmother Ivy and her life in Paris before WWII. Her diary opened a world of famous expats ,a time where Hitler and Germany were looming over Europe, and a love for the ages.

Opening up Ivy’s life opens up their lives to new possibilities. This allows both Hannah and Marlo to take risks and find answers to unexpected questions. Elizabeth Thompson has written a wonderful novel reminding us of love, hope and how tenuous life is in the time of way. Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson is a novel I would suggest everyone read.

Hannah Bond is doing what should be her dream job - leading Jane Austen tours through the British countryside. She lives with her two best friends in a flat in London. She is pretty much estranged from her alcoholic mother, who lives in Florida, and she has zero luck in the boyfriend department. Then on New Year's Eve, she gets a surprise visit from her mom, Marla. Marla brings two things with her to London - a black eye from her ex-boyfriend, and an envelope with a key and a deed to an apartment in Paris. Hannah reluctantly agrees to go with Marla to Paris to check out the apartment that Great-grandma Ivy owned. When they get there they discover a diary detailing a life of drinking and dancing with Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, and more. They also uncover newspaper clippings about the death of a famous writer named Andres Armand, and journal enries about Ivy's life with Andres and they discover that Andres was actually her Great-grandpa, not Tom, the Great-grandpa she always knew and loved.
This was a beautifully written, heartwarming story about family. There are quests, a bit of a love story, some humor, and the beautiful backdrop of Paris. What more can you ask for? If you enjoy women's fiction, then you will enjoy this.

So many people loved this book that I feel like I am missing something - since I couldn’t finish reading it. I think I just couldn’t get past the naming dropping in the diary entries (Hem and Pablo) it just seemed so trite. I couldn’t really appreciate the relationship between Marla and Hannah, the back and forth dialogue just didn’t work for me. It isn’t that this poorly written or even a bad story, I just could not get into it and had to put it down. I appreciate the opportunity to access the ARC and would certainly try another book by this author.

I could not put this book down! Hannah and her mother, Marla, have a very strained relationship which seemed so real throughout the story. You could really sense the resentment and feelings behind Hannah's distant relationship with Marla. They have to work together, though, when they inherit a Paris apartment by surprise. You could see how much both of them wanted to improve, but the strain of the past working against them. And the setting...I absolutely loved it. You got a feel for present day Paris, but that was nothing compared to the Paris of the 1920s and 40s, which came alive through diary entries woven throughout each chapter. This was the feel good story I didn't know I needed at this time, with a great setting and a good cast of characters. Thank you to the publisher, the author, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of book!