A BAKERY IN PARIS by Aimie K. Runyan is a wonderfully-written and engaging dual-timeline historical novel following two strong women from the same family, living generations apart, but tied together by a small bakery in Montmartre. In 1870, as the Prussians are invading Paris, Lisette Vigneau lives with her wealthy parents in the heart of Paris. While out on an errand, she meets Théodore Fournier, a revolutionary National Guardsman, who will change her life forever. Giving up her life of luxury, she joins the Commune of Paris uprising. As a way to help, Lisette opens a simple bakery to provide bread to the starving people in the impoverished neighborhoods around her. But will she be able to resist the comforts of her past life when they are offered to her once again? In 1946, Lisette’s nineteen-year-old great-granddaughter, Micheline is struggling with the disappearance of her mother during the war as well as the recent loss of her father, leaving her to care for her two younger sisters alone. A kind neighbor helps her enroll in a prestigious baking academy so she can re-open her great-grandmother’s bakery. Armed with Lisette’s battered book of recipes and with the support of her charming classmate, Laurent, Micheline finds the strength to embark on her own journey of self-discovery. The stories of these two strong and selfless women were expertly intertwined. The themes of food, family and love were the perfect ingredients for this compelling story. The French baking recipes scattered between the chapters were the perfect added touch. I highly recommend this unforgettable novel. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an early copy.

🍞 Review: A Bakery in Paris by Aimie K. Runyan @aimiekrunyan 🍞

A Bakery in Paris by Aimie K. Runyan is a historical fiction set in a dual timeline of 1870 and post World War II Paris. In both timelines, we get to read the struggles of common people. In 1870, they were fighting to stop the anarchy and, in the later timeline, to rebuild after a war.

Micheline and Lisette are the main characters of this book who are intertwined. The book has alternate storylines in each chapter, and the parallel between both these characters is very clear. I fell in love with Lisette. She is a character with conscience and determination and gives up her life of luxury even though she knows that the path she is choosing is full of danger. Micheline never questions the responsibility that is unexpectedly put on her. Both of these women are strong and determined to do the best.

The best part is all the recipes interspersed throughout the book. I wish that I could know more about all the other characters, especially about Lisette's other children. This book was a delight, and I really enjoyed it.

Thank you, William Morrow and Netgalley, for this book.

I enjoy dual timeline stories and was interested in reading this one especially since it involved a bakery. The story started a little slow but quickly picked up speed. However, I began to lose a little interest in the story, especially towards the end. I was ready for this book to be over and while the story ended ok it seemed too perfect for both characters.

1870 - Lisette rebels against the life laid out for her by her wealthy family. 1946 - Micheline is struggling to make ends meet while raising her younger sisters after her father’s death and her mother’s disappearance. The little green bakery in Montmartre connects the dual timeline story. The novel has a strong sense of time and place with well-developed, sympathetic characters. It will be a good choice for book clubs.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Historical fiction is one of my absolute favorite genres. And I love when they have dual timelines; even more when it’s women of the same family! In Aimie’s newest book, it follows Lisette, a well off woman in the 1870s who just wants to cook and bake. Her life is turned upside down when she meets Theo, a revolutionary who is fighting for the rights of the common people. She opens a small bakery to help people suffering from food insecurity.

The second timeline follows her great- granddaughter, Micheline. She’s only 19, but she’s forced to care for her young sisters after her mother mysteriously disappears. To make money for the family, she opens the bakery below their apartment and enrolls in a fancy baking school. But she can’t rest until she find out what happened to her mother.

I loved Aimie’s previous novel and it’s clear she puts her whole heart into her books. I loved that their shared love of baking is what united Lisette and Micheline. But both women were strong and independent and showed lots of bravery in the face of hard times. This is a must read book and make sure to have a pastry in hand! 🥐🥮

Thank you @suzyapprovedbooktours, @bookishaimie and @williammorrowbooks for my ARC.

A Bakery in Paris by Aimie K. Runyan has dual timelines in the 1800’s and post–World War II, and is a great example of the determination of two women to not just survive, but to also thrive and make the world a better place! I enjoyed reading this!

The author is one of my favorites, and her newest novel has a special place in my heart now -- a stunning dual timeline histfic story based in a Montmartre bakery with MCs Lisette in 1870, as the Prussians invaded Paris, and Micheline in post-WWII 1946. The lives of the two women from the same family are contrasted as each struggle to survive horrendous times.

Aimie is a master at character development, gripping narrative, and historical detail. You ARE there in each era, you FEEL the panic, terror and relief, you SWOON over the many luscious recipes (think crème pâtissière and lemon madeleines). Histfic fans and lovers of Paris and French baking will adore it, as I did. Highly recommended!

“A Bakery in Paris,” by Aimie K. Runyan, is an intriguing and captivating Historical Fiction novel that I devoured. The timelines are set in 1870, when the Prussians tried to starve the people in Paris, and in 1946: post-World War Two. The protagonists are two women from the same family in different timelines. I love how the author vividly describes the setting, the lifestyle, and the colorful and dramatic characters. The backdrop is a small bakery that helps to feed the people, and also l provides a wonderful setting for family, friends, love, and hope.

Both women had to make difficult and important decisions in their time. The circumstances make life difficult, and they had to struggle for survival. Both had to be armed with courage. It is amazing how the ingredients are used so lovingly in the bakery. These women are leaders during historical times with time, patience, skill, love, and hope. I highly recommend this memorable novel.

for A Bakery in Paris is a beautiful historical fiction set in Paris about a bakery in 1870 and 1946. In 1870 the Prussians are trying to take over Paris and Lisette leaves her wealthy family to marry a revolutionary solider and decides to open a bakery. In 1946 Micheline has lost her father and her mother is missing after the war, so she is now raising her two sisters and she decides to try reopening her grandmother's bakery.

I like that this book is two different time periods and it's not WWII, it's right after which I'm finding I want more books in the post war period. And the Franco-Prussian War I know very little about so I really enjoyed that aspect. The book also has little recipes interspersed which I liked seeing too!

Definitely check out this book when it comes out August 1st!

This book was so very heartfelt! What a wonderful story, with a dual timeline, to tell us of a bakery in Paris.

And what I learned about Paris baking! I had no idea it was so involved, with so many steps. I would just love to sample some of the treats baked by the characters, and I so enjoyed that the recipes are included.

This is an author I’ll follow with enthusiasm. My thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

A Bakery in Paris by Aimie K. Runyan is an enthralling historical novel set in nineteenth-century and post–World War II. Here we follow two fierce women of the same family, generations apart, who find that their futures lie in the four walls of a simple bakery in a tiny corner of Montmartre.
Runyan has crafted a beautiful story. I was hooked and didn’t want to stop reading.
The characters are so well developed that they feel like they are the reader's own family.
The stories are skillfully woven together and the dual timelines are truly engaging.
My first time reading her work and I’m very impressed.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank You NetGalley and William Morrow for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

"A Bakery in Paris" by Aimie K. Runyan
Review by Shirley Weidner July 18, 2023

A delightful and enjoyable, historical read in two time periods 1946, WWII and 1870, Siege of Paris. The protagonists are family from two different generations. Micheline’s story interweaves with Lisett’s in a neighborhood bakery. The privations of War are different, but emotions and family differ enough to provide an engaging, sweet read. I always learn from history by comparing views within my own life experiences. Many of our foremothers were driven and strong.

I highly recommend this adventure into history and believe it is a satisfying read! I received a free advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

This is a dual timeline book that highlights two strong women dealing with the struggles of their time, but finding comfort from baking. The first timeline featured is from 1870 when Lisette is experiencing life in Paris as the Prussians are attacking the city. Lisette lived a very privileged life until she met Theo and decided to join the people who are fighting for Paris. She moves into a poorer neighborhood and finds herself providing value by baking bread for the neighbors. She faces many challenges as the fear of fighting grows, and access to any food items becomes very difficult.

The second timeline is from the 1940s, where Micheline is caring for her two younger sisters after their parents were lost in the war. As Micheline struggles to figure out how to care for her family, a neighbor helps in enrolling her in a baking academy. Micheline deals with the pain of her parents loss, struggling in the baking academy, and finding her path forward.

4.5/5 Stars.

First, yes, another dual timeline novel. However, as I’ve said before, while I’m getting a bit bored with the use of this mechanic, there are some novels where it works well. This is one of those instances where, although this could have easily been two connected novellas, I did find the combining of the two to be nicely done. There’s nothing where in the more recent timeline that someone goes searching for the secret in someone else’ past, which is what annoys me about most dual timelines. Instead, we have two stories about two women from the same family, and we watch each of them unfold, and see their parallels. Yes, there are things that Micheline does discover about her ancestor Lisette during the course of the book, but that’s not the focus, and thank heavens for that.

In fact, the “discovery” that Micheline makes takes the form of Lisette’s journal which started out as a book where she wrote down her recipes for breads and pastries, but also included notes about her life and experiments with baking! Well, I can promise you that I took down a few of these, and I hope to try a few one day (in fact, I’m taking a bread baking course right now, so…). But that’s not the point. The point is, these recipes are what connect these two women, and thereby making the two timelines more meaningful and equally as important to the story. If I have one (not so small) niggle about these recipes it’s that they’re set out in pounds and ounces. You see, the French were the ones credited with inventing the metric system, and they started using it officially some 80 odd years before the start of this book. I’m guessing this is because the ARC I received is meant for the US market (and maybe the recipes for the rest of the world will be in metric measurements), but seeing the imperial measurements listed, just felt wrong to me.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Aimie read this review and contacted me about this. Apparently, the famous pastry chef Carême himself used imperial measurements in his recipes, and Runyan just translated them directly. So, I stand corrected!

That said, the main part of this book is how this bakery began, and the two women for whom it meant so much. Lisette leaves behind a life of luxury to be with the revolutionary man she loves, her getting the bakery and helping feed her neighborhood during the battles that raged in France, was her main objective. Micheline is a survivor of WWII, orphaned and alone with her two younger sisters, for whom she needs to provide. Both of them are strong willed women, and both of them are principled in the ways they wish to lead their lives.

Honestly, I really liked them both very much. However, I’m not sure I bought a couple of things that happened with Lisette, and one or two things with Micheline were a touch too convenient for my taste. Despite these little things, admittedly, I just devoured this book (pun intended), and I can very warmly recommend it. I think that for all this, I can give it four and a half stars out of five. Well worth the read, but make sure you’ve got a sandwich nearby while you’re reading it because the recipes will make you hungry!

1870: The Prussian army have reached the gates of Paris, the city is completely surrounded and they enforce a blockade and try to starve the population into surrendering. Lisette Vigneau parents are from one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Paris and they live in the centre of the city. Lisette is rather unconventional and headstrong and she sneaks into the kitchen to watch, help and learn from the families cook.

One day Lisette is without a chaperone, her mother would have a fit if she knew and Lisette meets National Guardsman Theodore Fournier. Lisette runs away from home and to be with Theodore, she opens a small bakery and to bring hope and sustenance to the poor neighborhood of Montmartre. Soon the Parisians are starving, only rich have stock piled food and can afford the black market prices, Lisette could return home, she decides to stay with her beloved Theo and her new friends.

The story has a dual timeline, it’s told from the points of view of the two main characters Lisette and Micheline the women are related and it kept my attention.

1946: Micheline Chartier lost her father early in the war, her mother disappeared without a trace two years ago, and at nineteen she's looking after her younger sisters. Madame Dupuis her kindly neighbour has helped Micheline, she pays for her to attend the prestigious baking academy and so she can open a bakery in the empty bistro below their apartment. Laurent Tanet started at the academy before Micheline, he’s a very nice young man and is there for her when she struggles during lessons, they both develop feelings for each other and with her mother still missing Micheline feels guilty.

I received a digital copy of A Bakery in Paris by Aimie K. Runyan from William Morrow and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The narrative highlights how both Lisette and Michelle had to deal with the brutality of war, cope with the loss of loved ones, overcome obstacles and they shared fondness for baking and Micheline finds solace and inspiration in grandmothers journal. I loved how Ms. Ruyan included throughout the book, recipes for the delicious French baked treats and ones you would find in a patisserie.

I didn't know a lot about the Franco-Prussian War and in 1871 the Prussia army defeated France, ending French dominance in continental Europe, creating a unified Germany and causing political tension in France. Once again Aimie K. Ruyan has written a really fascinating book, about two strong and resilient women and five stars from me.

I received an advanced copy of this book from William Morrow Paperbacks via NetGalley.

Set in two different time periods, the book follows the stories of two resilient women as they navigate challenges, loss, and the pursuit of love in the ever-changing city of Paris.

In 1870, Lisette Vigneau, a headstrong young woman from a wealthy family, finds her life upended by the Prussian invasion of Paris. Drawn to the cause of the people, she abandons her privileged existence to join the fight for a better Paris. Through her determination, she opens a bakery to provide much-needed support to the impoverished community. As famine and rebellion grip the city, Lisette's resolve is tested, and she must confront the sacrifices she's made.

In 1946, nineteen-year-old Micheline Chartier grapples with the loss of her father and the absence of her mother. Left to care for her younger sisters, Micheline feels trapped and ill-equipped for the responsibility. When she enrolls in a prestigious baking academy, her life takes an unexpected turn. Alongside her classmate Laurent Tanet, Micheline searches for her missing mother while discovering her own path forward.

Both women encounter profound sorrow, but they find solace in the transformative power of love and make courageous decisions. They believe that through the act of baking, which combines simple ingredients like flour, yeast, and sugar with a touch of love, they can ignite personal revolutions. The strength and resilience displayed by both women are truly remarkable and go beyond what can be easily understood.

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley. I am drawn to books set in Paris and this one is excellent. It has a dual timeline of a young woman in the early 1940s whose mother disappeared two years ago just after the war ended. She tries to look for her mother while also raising her two young sisteers. The other timeline is in the 1870s with a young woman raised in wealth and privilege while many in the city are starving to death. She does not wait for fate to intervene, but seizes her future. Both stories kept my attention and made me care about the characters. Lots of bakery recipes are interspersed throughout the book which is great since my mouth was watering after reading the descriptions.

Told in two timelines, women from the same family, generations apart find their calling in the same bakery using the same recipes. Lisettes story is from the 1870s when the Prussians intend to overtake Paris and Michelline is post WWII and the city is rebuilding. After Lisette runs away from her "gilded cage" of a family to be with the people of Paris, she falls in love and opens the bakery feeding those who are starving while the war rages on. Michelline, forever waiting to see if her mother will come home from war, doesn't know how to raise her sisters with no income.

A beautifully woven and thought-out story through the thick of two wars and how two women overcame their hardships. I love everything Aimie Runyan has written.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. Opinions are my own.

Have a croissant and coffee on hand as you read this book because it'll make your hungry for French bakery items! A Paris bakery is the setting of a family story that highlights women in 1870 and post-World War II. I enjoyed learning more about life in France during the 1870s and seeing how the family bakery played a role in igniting hope for the characters.

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

As I devoured Aimie K. Runyan’s latest novel A BAKERY IN PARIS, never have I ever so fervently wished to be part of an author’s Beta reader group. Blackberry Clafoutis! Croissants! Croquembouche! Oh my! Did Runyan test her recipes on friends, family, and colleagues as she perfected her pages? Her novel made me hungry to taste every recipe, including the tempting variations her 19th century bourgeoise-cum-renegade baker Lisette suggests!

Recipes for those treats and many more delights and delicacies, both sweet and savory, that one traditionally finds at French boulangeries and patisseries are included as amuses-bouches between chapters in Runyan’s clever dual storyline of a multigenerational family in Paris, proprietors of Le Bijou, the titular bakery in Paris.

The narrative cleverly juxtaposes the occupation of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and the short-lived but valiant effort of the citizens known as the Communards to install an egalitarian form of self-governance, against the end of the German occupation of the city during WWII. In the 20th century storyline, the mother of seventeen-year-old Micheline has mysteriously left home without a trace, leaving Micheline, who is keen to follow in her 19th century ancestor Lisette’s footsteps as a baker, on her own to raise her two younger sisters while navigating a morass of bureaucratic red tape as she valiantly searches for her missing maman.

In each narrative, the author provides her heroines with understanding, kind, and supportive men to appreciate them: a contemporary recipe for the perfect man. But A BAKERY IN PARIS is wholeheartedly a women’s story with a refreshing feminist slant. Apart from each heroine’s respective lover and an intriguing Communard clergyman, the men are often absent, paper-pushers, or blowhard chest beaters. Even in the 19th c. storyline, it’s the women who rise to the occasion as the rescuers and problem solvers.

In both threads, secrets are long held; and desperate sacrifices are made—for the greater good, or so the characters believe. In wartime, morals can be fungible when the stakes are literally life and death and survival is at the other end of the bargain. And women have always paid the highest price, even when the reward is as messy, sticky, and complicated as a croquembouche. A BAKERY IN PARIS is a bijou—a jewel—of a novel. Savor it with a croissant and a creamy cup of bittersweet chocolat chaud.

~Leslie Carroll/Juliet Grey, author of the acclaimed Marie Antoinette trilogy

[**I received a complimentary copy of A BAKERY IN PARIS from NetGalley in exchange for my uncompensated review. My opinions are entirely my own.]