Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader Copy of The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue.

“Journeys don’t always begin when the train departs—they start when you decide to get on board.”

This poignant historical drama with a tightly wound, train-bound mystery at its core. It explores connection, secrets, and resilience with elegant prose and layered characters. Perfect for fans of Paula McLain and historical fiction with feminist undertones.
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This historical fiction novel is beautifully written. It is based on an infamous train derailment at the Paris Montaganassee train station in 1895. The stories of the passengers and crew leading up to the accident are told. Thanks, NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

Historical fiction that will keep you on the edge of your seat about the 1895 Paris train Disaster. Lots of great characters from all over the world interweaved to tell a fascinating story.

I was looking forward to reading this book because of the synopsis and because of the talented author Emma Donoghue. However, I found it difficult to connect with the characters so it was not an easy read. The author writes beautifully and the descriptions are very good. If you like this author, try this book.

This was a DNF for me. None of the characters were likable or interesting. Don't sell it as an exciting train story and get so bogged down that we can' t tell which character is which.

I did share with some of our groups at the library who may fare better with it. Thank you for the ARC.

3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 because while it was good, I kept finding myself distracted while reading this.

Although the story is well researched in parts and had the ability to be amazing, I never felt like I fully connected or cared about the characters. There were so many of them, it almost felt like we were just glossing over what made them who they were. In the end, I didn't care of the story was historically accurate or not and kind of hoped that the worst did happen, just for something to actually happen with the characters we've been reading about.

What saved this from being a 1 or 2 star book, however, was the moody atmosphere that I felt was well captured. I just didn't think the people involved were enough to make it great.

I am at 81% and I'm going to DNF. I know, so close! But the only character I really care about is Mado and based on the grotesque amount of details in this book (i.e. 2 paragraphs dedicated to the slow push of a turd out of a man's butt) I am not even sure I am going to get the ending I hope for. It is obvious Donoghue did an incredible amount of research for this historical fiction, I am just not the right audience to appreciate it.

In this fascinating historical fiction novel, readers discover a real 1895 train disaster in Paris through the eyes of its passengers, some of whom survived and some who didn’t. Drawing on photographs of the event, Donoghue brings a wide and varied cast of characters from around the world and differing backgrounds to life. Each character tells their side of the crash, and each character reveals their unique reasons and motivations for being on the train on this particular day. Each character is totally different from each other and has fascinatingly complex interactions with other passengers, and seeing the crash and the smaller events leading up to it from multiple perspectives is absolutely fascinating. The world-building and inclusion of the crash photographs are particularly impressive and give readers an understanding of how serious and severe the crash was, and Donoghue has captured the intensity and chaos of the accident in incredible detail. The delicate balance of narratives and perspectives is absolutely incredible, and, when paired with the meticulous details and character interactions, is somehow even better. Brilliant, unique, and immersive, this is an absolutely brilliant historical fiction novel full of amazing characters and details that readers will struggle to put down.

This author has historically captivated me and I am not at all unimpressed by this newest piece. I think mostly, the only con to reading this was the heartbreak and sadness I felt. Please be prepared to feel feelings when you read this.

<i><b>The Paris Express</i></b> will either be a love it or leave it proposition for readers. The author has an event-after-event-character-after-character way of writing that either grips a reader by the throat (just keep reading, reading, reading. . . ) or is like water off a duck's back (nope. not doing it). As for me. . .I was totally gripped, eyes wide open, very tall eyebrows . . .waiting through all the stops and countdowns.

This is one of those books which takes place in a very short period of time - like a few minutes on an escalator (one of my favorites - Nicholson Baker), siblings draped on a couch (good 'ol JD Salinger) or an elevator ride down (life changing - Jason Reynolds). Bonus for this fan of histfic, this one was a real event 7.5 hour event peopled with real people who may or may not have been in actual attendance along with fictional characters who show up only and ever in that historic event (as is the way of most fictional characters).

I heartily recommend this book - with a note that if you don't like it early on, you probably won't later. That said, I encourage you to stay just a little longer. . . .it's about a specific period of time on a date certain, that started in Granville, France and ended in Paris-Montparnasse (also France) 7.5 hours later. A reader who's stayed 'til the end of the ride will know more about France on that particular day, the world of 1895 and motivations and hopes of travelers of a certain train known as. . .The Paris Express.

*A sincere thank you to Emma Donoghue, Simon & Schuster, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.* 25|52:37d

The Paris Express is a fast-paced, high-stakes thriller that unfolds almost entirely aboard a speeding train, blending locked-room mystery with emotional suspense. As tensions rise and secrets unravel among passengers, the confined setting adds intensity to every twist and confrontation. With strong pacing, shifting alliances, and a sense of growing danger, the story keeps you guessing without relying on over-the-top action. Perfect for fans of thrillers that focus on atmosphere, character dynamics, and moral gray areas, The Paris Express delivers a gripping, claustrophobic ride full of suspense and emotional undercurrents—all without giving too much away.

Taking place over the course of one train ride across France, The Paris Express tells the story of the individuals aboard Engine 721 and the Montparnasse. While the stories and dialogue are fictionalized, the train derailment is a true event that Emma Donoghue tells perfectly. Each passenger has a unique story, ranging from a young boy traveling alone, to politicians to Mado Pelletier, who plans to make a point as an anarchist traveling to Paris. The story moved along quickly and I finished it in an afternoon, which is a testament to how much I wanted to keep reading to see what happened to all of the travelers.

Who hasn't taken a look at the passengers that surround you on a plane or a train and wondered about their lives? Emma Donoghue has done just that and brought about a dozen or so characters alive in her novel The Paris Express. When the story begins, trying to keep track of so many names, backstories, and personalities seems overwhelming, but it makes the story all the richer that they're all included. Coincidentally, having just spent time in Paris with a day trip to Normandy, I could visualize not just the characters, but the train ride itself. The suspense builds like the train's speed and you will not know what happens until the very end. Thank you to the author and S&S/Summit for the ARC.

Emma Donoghue takes the kernel of the true story of an 1895 train crash in Paris's Montparnasse train station and surrounds it with a cast of characters, real and imagined, to tell her version of what might have happened on that ill-fated trip. I'm not sure if I liked Donoghue's choice to place actual historical figures on the train with her fictional characters (her reasoning being that they were living in Paris at the time of the crash and could conceivably therefore have been on board), and the cast of characters is so large that it is difficult to get very invested in any of them, but the real draw of this book for me was Donoghue's depiction of train travel in France at this time; she has done her research and it shows in her meticulous descriptions of what it would be like to take this journey in each of the classes of travel--the sights, sounds, smells and tastes her passengers would have experienced.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Simon & Schuster for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for the free advance copy of The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue in exchange for an honest review. It’s out now, so you can - and should - get it!

The Paris Express, a terrific work of historical fiction - takes place over one 7.5-hour train ride that actually occurred on October 22, 1895. The novel begins just before the train pulls out of the station at 8:30 am from Granville, on the Normandy coast, bound for Paris. On board in the first, second and third class carriages are the passengers from all walks of life that anyone might encounter on such a journey - but one of them is not what they seem, and the journey holds unknown dangers for all on board - including the crew, who must keep the train running on time at all costs.

In my opinion, this is Donoghue’s best novel since her iconic “Room.” With a great cast of characters, propulsive speed and meticulous timing, especially during the last critical leg of the journey, I stayed up way past my bedtime racing to the finish.

Five stars.

This is not your average “strangers on a train” story.

Set over the course of a single train ride in 1910, The Paris Express delivers a story that feels like a locked-room mystery without the murder. Donoghue traps us in a first-class carriage between two women with very different lives and one very big secret. What follows is a razor-sharp examination of class, deception, trauma, and the masks we wear—especially when we’re trying to survive.

At its heart is a tense conversation between an upper-class woman and a seemingly ordinary governess, but nothing is as it seems. The atmosphere is claustrophobic in the best way, building a slow-burn suspense with every stop.

The book max almost had too many characters and it was really hard to keep track of l everyone. It was really just a little slice of lice of the characters on the train, and I thought that many would die at the end but the train crashes and no one on the train dies. It felt a little anticlimactic.

This novel was not what I expected. I didn’t enjoy this as much as previous books by Donoghue. The Paris Express what maybe happened during this tragic and disastrous train accident in Paris, but it never quite grabbed me, I felt like some was missing. Ultimately a well written book, just not for me..

This cast of characters was so rich! The way their lives were woven together was so rewarding, weaving in and out of the carriages and railway staff. The pacing was relentless, but not aggressive; I could feel it building and building and the last 20 pages were excellent!

Unfortunately, this wasn't a great read for me. I appreciate the time and effort Donoghue put into the research for this book; however, I generally found it a touch uninteresting.

What Donoghue does well is take the events of one day and transform it into enough dialogue and detail to fill an entire book. There are enough characters and plot lines to keep the story moving, though each chapter only comprises a few hours at most.

Still, I didn't fully feel that the events of the novel necessarily warranted an entire novel. There's a decent amount of suspense and build-up throughout the story, yet the ending felt anticlimactic and disappointing.

Finally, there were several passages and scenes that felt either too graphic (a descriptive sexual encounter), or simply uninteresting (lengthy descriptions of the mechanics of the train).