In this fascinatingly complex historical fiction novel, readers travel to the end of World War I and the European continent near the front lines. Following Scottish sisters Corran (a professor of classics, ancient Greek, and Latin) and Stella (a typist attached to the peace negotiations in Paris), readers explore the aftermath of World War I on women who lost brothers to the war and seek to rebuild Europe to prevent future wars and protect the rights of women going forward. Johnston also ties in a history of early twentieth-century Scottish rugby into the book through the perspective of Rob, Corran’s fiance and a military doctor who struggles to return to rugby and civilian life with the end of the war. The three unique characters in this novel highlight new perspectives of the end of World War I, and the focus on the aftermath rather than the war itself is an interesting and enjoyable change of pace. Johnston’s plot and prose are incredibly interesting and engaging, but her characters (particularly Corran and Stella) are the true heart of the story with uniquely complex personalities, backgrounds, and relationships. Historical fiction fans of all genres will enjoy Johnston’s characters and the vivid historical setting she brings to life in this fantastic novel.

I started The Paris Peacemakers and being transparent it took me a while to tune into the author’s unique writing style. I am glad I eventually found the writing rhythm and immersed myself completely in the book.

The book follows Stella, Corran and Rob. It starts at a rugby game in Edinburgh, Scotland, just before the start of WW1. We see the camaraderie of the rugby players and the support and love from the crowds. A happy moment before the horrors they would all face with the war.

My takeaway from the feeling of the book was that the author wanted to encompass the way people behaved back then. A stiff upper lip, nobody discussing feeling and all rather proper. Even though there are horrific events in the story and very heart-pulling things happening it doesn’t have the emotional verbalism that a book set today would have. If it was set today, they would all be having mental health days and therapy. Both of which I am glad are available. But back then the a lack of talking about feelings, especially from those on the front line who saw friends and co-workers killed. I feel it made it worse for them, they had no verbal outlet. The author captured that feeling perfectly. So for me when difficult things were happening it was obvious the lack of emotion involved was purposeful.

I enjoyed also that I learned so much. I never knew about the Peace talks or those typists who went to The Majestic Hotel. I found that truly fascinating and I was transported there. The story feels solid in the way it flows with all the characters interweaving each other’s lives.


Exterior of Hotel Majestic, Paris

With today’s current affairs, it feels like history repeating itself. With all those lives wasted nobody in power seems to have learned. Over 100 years later and still men in power making life-changing decisions and using people as collateral damage. It is utterly devastating.


I do read a lot of war saga fiction and that tends to be the families left at home and the different struggles they have with rations and family matters. It was very interesting to have this book be from the people out there in the war. Be it on the battle lines, or teaching soldiers or in the hotel doing important work. That was such a different angle to write about and it works. It had me hooked and I was totally immersed and could see everything happening as I ghosted alongside Rob, Stella and Corran.

So if you are looking for a new read, I recommend The Paris Peacemakers. You will be educated and satisfied when you close the last page. You will also be waiting maybe not so patiently for the sequel in 2025.

The Paris Peacemakers is an unputdownable, rich novel set during World War I and is filled with finding "Peace" on two levels:. both globally and searching for peace within oneself. Fans of Downton Abbey will love this book, because Downton's success was showing us life 100 years ago. This book goes further as it explores both the history of the period and three individual's journey through this crisis-filled time. This is the first book I read about this often-forgot era that really was personal - that really made you feel what real people went through. I can envision being in Paris and visiting battlegrounds. It is a fast-paced, well-written, novel with a touch of the romance of youth moving into adulthood - with their dreams and hopes eclipsed by the war.

The setting for most of the book is the Peace Conference that officially ends World War I. We follow the youngest of the three characters, Stella, who after college takes a secretarial course in London. She is offered a chance to be a transcriptionist in Paris. There she lives in the Majestic Hotel and works at the Astoria, which still smells from being used as a hospital during the war. She gets to move in the shadows of people she's only read about in newspapers, Prime Minister Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson, Clemenceau of France, generals and even a movie star. as an official part of the British delegation to the conference. She even has a suitor of sorts, Freddie, who is hustling for more than just love. Yet, she feels guilty among the glamour since what gave her the opportunity of a lifetime - the war - killed her beloved brother Jack. I enjoyed learning about this conference which I had not come across before. The book inspired me to look up some of the characters presented to me that are lesser known.

Stella's older sister, Corran, stays in the UK during the war pursuing her life long love of classic education, literature, Latin and Greek and teaching at Oxford. She communicates with her mother in Northern Scotland and mourns the loss of Jack and worries about their brother Alex serving in the Navy. She is torn between her career and her love of North Scotland and how the war has changed everything in her world. Corran goes to Northern France as part of a team to rehab soldiers to prepare them to return to England after the war. She teaches them basic skills to get jobs, like letter writing and finds great purpose in that. Corran's friend and love interest Rob was a rugby player about to embark on a promising career as a surgeon when he enlists in the army as a surgeon. He feels trauma and physical ailments from what he witnessed rescuing soldiers from the battlefield and for surviving when many of his Rugby brothers did not survive.

We all know the history -the trenches, mustard gas, shell shock - but how individuals coped with seeing such things and losing a beloved family member and friends the grew up with when they were just out of high school is not something that is conveyed in many books. Ms. Johnston writes these feelings in a positive way as each character goes through their own personal quest for peace to move on. I am glad that Ms. Johnston lets us know that the novel is based on stories her own aunts told her about their experiences as typists living at the Majestic and this made the plot and the characters truly authentic. I might not have been able to read this wonderful book without receiving an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher Allison & Busby, for which I am grateful.

The Paris Peacemakers is the first book I've read by Flora Johnston. I've read quite a few books lately set during World War II, but this is the first in a long time that the subject was WWI. It's actually the first one I've ever read concerning the peace negotiations following The Great War. It was heartbreaking, hard to read at times but also filled with hope.

In 1919, world leaders converge on Paris for the international Peace Conference at the end of The Great War. It's a delicate matter, as each country is fighting for its piece of the pie in this new era; it's all rather contentious. Typist Stella Rutherford of Scotland is one of the young women chosen to work on the mounds of paperwork produced from negotiations. She's thrilled to be in this city full of both glamour and devastation. Besides, the heavy workload helps her escape the constant grief for her younger brother Jack, who was killed in France. Stella's older sister Corran travels to Dieppe to put her academic career to use in helping soldiers learn skills to help them in the post-war world. Rob Campbell, Corran's fiancé, was a surgeon on the front lines, and he cannot get the memories of death, mutilation and horror out of his head. Rob's former rugby teammates from Scotland also weigh heavily on his mind. Will these three Scots be able to put the pieces of their lives back together, as the world leaders attempt to put Europe back together (for better or worse) during peace negotiations?

This was such a fascinating subject! Many of the people made mention of in the book were actually real people, making the story even more impactful. It was disturbing to watch the various countries involved in the peace negotiations fighting more for power over other nations than peace. I liked all of the main characters, but Rob was my overall favorite. Stella was bored in Scotland, and she went to London to work. It was working there that she was chosen to be sent to Paris as a typist for the negotiations. She was thrilled to be in the City of Lights, though one couldn't get away from the devastation. She was trying to get over the horrifying loss of her brother Jack, a very talented artist and the person to whom she was closest. When the descriptions of his artwork that was created on the Front were revealed, it was absolutely horrifying. Rob took Stella and Corran to Jack's gravesite, and it was beyond heartbreaking. Stella found some romance in Paris, but it wasn't until later in the book when we discover who she was meant to be with; I was shocked...and happy. Corran was a lecturer at Oxford, but her job was put on hold when she got the opportunity to go to Dieppe to teach soldiers before they are sent back home. She absolutely loved the job and felt like she made a difference. She became close to Arthur, who was a co-worker there. She was flummoxed when she found out his classes were so popular because he was discussing socialism with them, which struck a chord in him after the world was torn apart. Corran and Rob hadn't seen in each for the longest time, and I wondered if they would in fact end up married. Rob was my favorite here. He was worn out after all his work on the front lines putting young man back together,..or watching them die. He was particularly torn apart by the many deaths of his Scottish rugby teammates; he was with a good friend when the man died as Rob was attempting to comfort him, as there was nothing he could do to help. He no doubt had what we call PTSD today. His hands shook so badly that he wondered if he would ever be a surgeon again. He worked at a rehab facilities for soldiers, but the director ended up telling him basically he needed to find himself. He spent some time in Scotland with Corran, and time in Paris with Stella. The negotiations were completed and the treaty signed, but there was worry that a war would happen again. (And we all know one did...and rather soon.) Lives turned out differently than all three leads expected, but all was well for them. There's a chapter set after the treaty where Rob discovers hope. I cried at that part. Besides from some passages where some characters were declaring how wonderful socialism would be, it was a great story. Hard to read at times, but lovely, too, with love and hope.

I received an ARC of this book courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. I received no compensation for my review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Poignant, heartbreaking, realistic. A well plotted story set after WWI that doesn't spare punches and moves you to tears.
Full of food for thought, compelling
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I was particularly keen to read The Paris Peacemakers after finding out from Eileen Dunlop’s book Scottish Women Writers that it was partly inspired by Flora Johnston’s great-aunt Christina Keith. In fact, it draws on the experiences of three of her great-aunts, and what remarkable women they must have been.

The Paris Peacemakers follows three Scottish characters after the end of the First World War, although does touch on their experiences just prior to and during the war too. Rob is a surgeon and a Scottish international rugby player. Corran is an exceptionally clever woman who would have graduated with top honours from Cambridge had women been allowed to graduate and who travels to France to give the troops the knowledge and skills they’d need to improve their lives when they returned home. Her younger sister Stella is working in Paris as part of the secretarial team providing support to those negotiating what became known as the Treaty of Versailles at the International Peace Conference of 1919.

I was particularly touched by the part of the story where the three visit Corran and Stella’s brother Jack’s grave in northern France. My great-uncle, like Jack, is buried near Arras. I have visited his grave on a number of occasions so many of the place names, such as Bapaume, Duisans and Amiens, were familiar to me. I always felt it was so sad that my great-uncle’s family would never have been able to visit their son and brother’s grave. The grief felt by the sisters was movingly described and almost palpable. I know exactly what it feels like to stand in one of these graveyards full of young men, knowing that a relative lies there and I could understand their sense of loss and sorrow at the waste of life. I don’t know how my great-uncle died but if he made it as far as a casualty clearing station, I like to think there was someone as compassionate as Rob caring for him and his comrades.

For all the awful experiences of everyone who lived through the First World War there is a cautious sense of optimism and hope towards the end of the book. The characters in the book feel they have a part to play in rebuilding the world and working towards peace. “Now that the war is over, our work really begins.” Despite survivor’s guilt, or perhaps because of it, the characters feel they have duty to live life to the full. Indeed, one of the injured soldiers who Rob treats encourages him to play rugby again saying “you still have your legs and I still have my eyes. I want to see you play for Scotland one day soon. Sir”.

Rugby plays an important part in the life of Rob in particular. He played in the last Calcutta Cup match before the war and I felt that the game foreshadowed the war. The team spirit, the enthusiasm, working together against an enemy in a field of mud all seemed to portend what was to come. As the author writes, “the only tiny mercy is that none of them knew.”

I’ve read quite a lot of fiction set around the time of the First World War and in my opinion this is up there with the best of them such as Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks and The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing by Mary Paulson-Ellis. The Paris Peacemakers is just superb, a beautifully written and moving look at life in the aftermath of war.

What a good historical fiction novel this is. I really enjoyed it. Set largely in Paris in 1919 when The Paris Peace Treaty was being negotiated and other parts of France, Scotland and England. Centred around the Rutherford family from Scotland and the eldest daughters fiancé who was a member of the Scottish rugby team. Alex Rutherford is a Royal Navy officer, his younger brother Jack joins the army and is killed in action. Corran is a lecturer at Oxford, St Hilda’s and after the war signs up to teach soldiers in France to help them in getting jobs on their return and her fiancé surgeon Rob Campbell is due to return to the UK, but he is traumatised by everything he has done and seen. And youngest daughter Stella gets a job as a typist with the Imperial British delegation at the Paris conference. Written from the POV’s of Stella, Corran and Rob although Stella’s story is the main thread. Fantastic research made this a fascinating read as the factual detail was brilliantly and seamlessly merged with the fiction.

Briefly, Stella is struggling with her grief over the death of Jack and takes the job in Paris to be closer to him. She is quartered in a nice hotel, spends her days in a small office typing up notes from the many meetings being held and her evenings enjoying the hotel’s entertainment and going out to clubs and restaurants. Meanwhile, Corran is living in basic conditions in a hut but she realises that teaching is for her a calling and that she wants to carry on, but if she marries that won’t be possible. Rob has had a terrible war and seen things no one should see. He tries to hide it but he is clearly suffering from what we now call PTSD.

The interweaving of details of the deaths of the members of the Scottish Rugby Team was quite emotional, so sad that so many of them lost their lives. I’ve since done more reading around the Peace Treaty and the author has done a great job of making what was a difficult and challenging period of time easily readable. Some of the descriptions of life at the front are pretty graphic but not gratuitous - I found some of it quite upsetting. A very good read that I found completely compelling, and i learned a lot. Great read.

This is a fabulous book. It explored how the ‘peace’ unfolded after WW1 through the eyes of three individuals all of whom were in France at the end of the war. It stressed the missed opportunity for lasting peace and how the treaty of Versailles was an act of revenge. It explored issues of disability, ptsd (she’ll shock, mental illness) but also women’s rights as at the time they were often denied meaningful opportunities. It ended with an unexpected love story although it would have been nice to see more of the older sister, towards the end. She appeared to be a main character at the start but seemed sidelined by the end. This did not spoil my enjoyment of wha5 was a profound read that taught me a lot about the end of this tragic conflict

I rarely care to write a less-than-stellar review because anyone brave enough to write a story for others to read is someone to be celebrated. While in the end, I enjoyed this book, I found the voices of the main characters to be very similar. When I had to put down the book in the middle of a chapter, I needed to go back to the start of each chapter to figure out who was speaking. I found myself in love with the research that went into this book. There were things I never knew about WWI that I found fascinating. I kept reading for that reason alone. The writing itself for the book was excellent. I think it might have been better written from one viewpoint. That being said, I tend to judge how a book made me feel, which usually shows up with me thinking about the characters after the book is over. It did that for me.

This is a very evocative and touching story of those who lived through WW1. We join the characters just as the war has ended and thus begins a coming together of the leaders of all the countries involved in the war in order to hopefully bring about lasting peace. So many lives destroyed, with even those who weren’t killed, living through scenes they can never erase from their minds and so many with life changing injuries.

Stella, wanting to go over to France, in some ways to be closer to her brother, though he had died the previous year on the battle ground, got a job as a typist typing up meeting notes, and further on, agreements drawn up for the peace treaty to be signed by all the participating countries. As the meetings went on, and as the typists became party to the negotiations through their work, it became obvious that each country’s leader was in it for the betterment of their own economies and countries at the expense of others, and were certainly less interested in ensuring it would bring about lasting peace. I could see just from reading this book how complicated it was. It was educational because I know so little about that part of history but it certainly makes you sit back and think how easy it is for disagreement to turn to war.

We also hear from Stella’s sister Corran. Well educated with a degree in classics from Oxford, Corran was very career focussed. She was involved in teaching soldiers in France so that they would have some chance of finding work now that the war was over. She grew to become very fond of the soldiers she worked with and the idea that once the teaching was over and on return to England, she would be expected to marry and give up her career really didn’t appeal to Corran. Was it possible that she could do both? It was something she couldn’t really envisage.

Then we follow Rob, Corran’s fiancé. Rob, a former Scottish rugby player and also doctor had served on the front line throughout the war treating the injured, and had seen so much blood shed, so many deaths, so many men he did his best to help but under the circumstances it was a hopeless situation. It left him quite broken. Out of all the characters I think I liked Rob the best.

Still, I’m beginning to ramble on. This was an exceptionally good book to read. I was sorry to reach the end. It was informative, touching, emotional, beautifully written and excellently researched. I read another book a while ago, a non fiction book called The Facemaker by Dr Lindsey Fitzharris and whilst primarily it told the story of a plastic surgeon who helped put WW1 soldiers faces back together, it also had excerpts, letters and news articles from the war that told of life in the trenches. With that book and this one they highlight just how bad WW1 was.

This is a wonderfully told story, with different facets of the time period discussed, giving much food for thought. Brilliant book.

An interesting perspective of the International Peace Conference of 1912, told from the perspectives of one Scottish family, who were forever changed by WWI.

I appreciated how the author showed the graphic nature of war, nothing is sugar coated, be mindful of that if you have a sensitive stomach.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this ARC in return for my honest review.

This book takes place in the aftermath of ww1. When the peace treaty, is that the correct word?, were signed. The atrocoties of ww1 was graphically described, no sugarcoating. I like that in a book. I liked the Main characters, it was an intense book.
Thank you to netgalley for letting me read this e arc in exchange for an honest opinion

This uses the World War 1 element with what I was looking for from this description. The characters felt like they belonged in this universe and had a great use of the time-period. It had everything that I wanted and enjoyed how realistic it was. Flora Johnston has a great writing style and it left me wanting to read more.

Thanks are due to NetGalley and Allison & Busby for an ARC of this book to read and review.

The Paris Peace Treaty of 1919 that followed upon the « war to end all wars » was put together in a none too peaceful fashion. Many participants, observers, and ordinary people thought it virtually guaranteed a future war. Historians generally agree. It is to Flora Johnston’s enormous credit that she manages to make a cohesive narrative of what was a near free-for-all of clashing interests, unclear objectives, hidden agendas, and difficult personalities. And she does this while sensitively exploring the lives of fictional characters, primarily the Scottish Rutherford family and their friends, who were forever marked by the war and its aftermath. A sub-set of characters are tied to the others through the historically-real Scottish rugby team, the majority of which enlisted in 1914, and suffered enormous casualties.

The author, for whom this is the second book of a planned trilogy, devoted part 1 to introducing the main characters, including the highly symbolic (as well as real) rugby team as the war begins. She then follows their separate but interconnected paths through the war itself, on the western front and on the home front, drawing some of the most evocative experiences of the horrors I’ve ever read, both in those who fought and those who waited, and prayed, for their return. She also sensitively renders the deep wounds sustained by those who lost their men, or who welcomed them back with terribly scarred minds and bodies, and those who would mourn their loss forever.

First-born Alex was already in the Royal Scottish navy when the war started, and the rare news from him causes much anxiety for his mother and sisters at home. Youngest brother Jack is a promising artist and rugby fan, in a country where rugby, before the war, is obsessively followed. He is a ghost in the story, but a very present one for all the main characters, especially his sisters.

Older sister Corran, an Oxford lecturer, is engaged to Rob Campbell, a gifted rugby player on the Scottish team and a gifted surgeon. Like most of his team, Rob enlists immediately. His war is spent at the brutally understaffed and under-supplied clearing stations on the front, where the unrelenting pressure and unimaginable horrors shake his core beliefs, as they will for many others. They have barely seen each other during the war. An Oxford trained classicist at a time when few women attained those heights, she takes a temporary leave from teaching fine young ladies at Cheltenham College to teach Latin, Greek, and English writing skills to soldiers and veterans at a special camp in Dieppe. Ar first shocked by the roughness of the camp, the men, and her fellow teachers, she is profoundly changed by the end of her brief service.

Younger sister Stella, idealistic like Corran but more pragmatic, finishes her arts degree at Edinburgh University and then opts to do a secretarial course in London. An excellent scholar herself, she has an eye to her family’s diminishing fortunes and the new opportunities for women that the war has opened. Working to pay her way while also perfecting her typing and shorthand, Stella keeps deliberately busy to block the unrelenting grief she feels about the death of her brother and twin spirit Jack. This pays off when her high grades grant her employment with the Imperial British delegation at the Paris conference that begins in January 1919. This is where most of the story takes place, and where Stella, the novel’s main character, begins to understand that everything has changed and that a new world has been born. Like so many others, she also understands that it will sadly retain many of the bitter elements of the pre-war world: class, race and gender inequality, colonial oppression, and war itself.

This is a beautifully written book that explores an important historical event dominated by the world’s male leaders, keen to ensure their power and influence in the post-war world more than a lasting peace. This is a well-known story, but the author offers the perspective of the mostly forgotten women who performed the critical and often exhausting labour to support their needs, demands, and egos, while setting their decisions on the record. Most of them did not even have the right to vote. It’s remarkable how different war and peace can look depending on whose perspective is seen—the ruling men or the humble female support team. Johnston makes it clear where her sympathies lie—and that is precisely where the top-down histories so often miss the mark.

A story, based on real people, that will touch your heart. The Paris Peacemakers, by Flora Johnston, not only brings to life the horrors of World War 1, it tells of the peace deliberations in Paris after armistice. Four siblings from northern Scotland find different ways to serve during and after the war. The reader sees how war impacts both the soldiers, and their families. After the guns are silenced, do the peace treaty negotiators want true and lasting peace, or do they want revenge.? This is a unique look at the time immediately after WWI. I was able to read an ARC on #NetGalley.

I’m not a huge historical novel person, but the Oaris Peacmakers was so lovely. I loved reading about the early 19th century and different people’s lives amongst that time. It was beautiful, inspiring, tragic, and moving. Anyone looking for a rich read about an incredible time in our nations history please pick this up you will not be disappointed.