I'm a big fan of McLain, whose writing style has always delighted me. I confess that I found this effort a bit different, but that is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it. I don't normally like the dual timeline method of storytelling, and this lept back and forth between centuries so much so that I almost quit reading. But as the plots began to unfold, I stopped letting that get to me. Two major characters, in two entirely different centuries, whose lives began to unfold in a way that revealed the importance of their stories. Plots began to get more interesting and so clearly and cleverly reflected how both were in fact tied to one another through their collective experiences, across time, in the warren of tunnels that exist beneath the streets of Paris.

McLain is so adept at clearly expressing our human capabilities for kindness, but also laying bare, our dark and sometimes dangerous frailties. So good at showing our human history of inhumanity toward one another, and how our intolerances and biases have led to horrific cruelties. Even more astonishing, how cruelties were so easily rationalized by people who could have led better lives, yet revealing those who simply couldn’t begin to be better people.

I think the most terrifying parts of the book were the parallels between the horrors of the past and how uncomfortably close they are to the lead up to the current events of the day. There were those across history who stood by and felt powerless to affect change, those who felt it necessary to protect themselves and their worldly possessions while pretending not to see the cruelties being perpetrated against others, and those who shared the feelings of intolerance, and became complicit as enablers.

The stories were intriguing and a good read, but I felt let down at the ending and thought it could have been better constructed.

Skylark by Paula McLain is a historical French fiction novel that has a duo time period; one being 1664 and the other 1939. In the early years, the novel revolves around Alouette and her love of dye coloring which she has learned from her father. It is forbidden for a girl to take part in experiments.by the Guild.and French law. Alouette meets Etienne who works in the quarries and the tunnels under Paris. An infatuation develops between the two youths. In 1939, Germany is taking over other countries and soon Paris is under their control. Jewish families are taken from their homes and sent to camps. Sasha and her family are among the families taken, but Sasha is allow to be released because of her age. She turns to her neighbor, Kristof who is Dutch for help. This part of the novel pertains to how Sasha's life changes due to being Jewish. Read this novel to find out what happens to Alouette and Sasha during Paris two time periods. Thank you to Net Galley for allowing me to read this novel prior to its publication.

This was a great book. I loved every paragraph, every sentence and every word of this masterpiece! I read it in 12 hours, which is a lot for me to do! It had everything and more laid out in the novel! I sure hope There is more to come from this author! I am totally hooked!

What a beautifully written book. This is the type of book you read slowly so you can savor every word. The author brings the characters to life in both the 1660s and 1942. Although the main characters were centuries apart, they both were seeking refuge, redemption and freedom. I enjoyed how the tunnels under Paris became a character of its own. It led both women to their destiny. Thank you NetGalley and Atria books for the opportunity to read this exquisite book.

*Skylark* by Paula McLain is beautifully written and full of emotional depth. McLain has such a gift for bringing her characters and their world to life with rich detail and heart. The story feels intimate and layered, drawing you in with its mix of longing, resilience, and reflection. It’s the kind of novel that makes you pause and soak in the writing, while also pulling you along with a quiet intensity that stays with you after the last page.

SPOILER ALERT! The box provided to hide the review will not do so! Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review. You can read the overview on Amazon. The book is set between two time lines, but actually three. I loved Alouette’s story set in the 1600’s. She is a tragic character, but the story itself is beautifully written for the most part. I could do with a little less scenery about greenery. The river flowing underground was news to me. The development of colors was interesting. I found it completely implausible that three starved young women swam the Seine in boots and then rowed a boat back across it a day later. I almost threw my Kindle into the swimming pool when the author killed Alouette. I know she is a fictional character, but it is like she took a dagger and just murdered her. It added nothing to the story and the epilogue is completely unfulfilling. Change this. I can think of satisfying, but not saccharin endings. Surely the author can as well. A four for storytelling and a zero for concluding the story.

The second story is wartime Paris. Paris has fallen to the Nazis. Jews are being rounded up. Patients being treated for “mental” disorders are being removed from good psychiatric hospitals and deported east or just left to die in place. Perhaps worse. The resistance is working to save people, but who are your friends and who are the Parisians colluding with the Nazis. I loved reading about the extensive underground tunnels. As the author did not include her bibliography nor information source list I have questions about how much liberty she took with the escape of the children. At least this part of the story is concluded in a way that seems far more realistic.

This is definitely not your definitive historical fiction on the French resistance nor the deportation of the Jews from Paris. I’d give it a 3.5 because the writing really is quite good, but the accuracy cannot be verified at this time, the Alouette epilogue is pitiful and more time could have been devoted to the resistance and less to the hospital and pretty nurses.

I want to thank Atria Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review Skylark by Paula Mc Lain.
I liked the stories.
I liked the characters.
But, the chapters were much too short and didn’t like the constant changing of times from 1664 to 1939 etc.

3.8. I have really liked Paula McLain’s earlier novels (The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun) so I was excited to receive an advance copy of her newest novel. It was good but not on the level of her other novels in my opinion. This book is set in Paris in two time periods, the latter 17th century and the 1940s during the early occupation by the Germans. Although the stories were not intertwined per se, they both dealt with strong young women, both courageous, and defying and resisting the cultural norms, largely to survive. In the earlier story we follow Alouette, the daughter of a guild dye maker looking to make a discovery in color. Alouette, similar to her father, has an especially keen ability on color by using herbs and spices and was very creative in discovering new resplendent colors in defiance of the guild . In the 1940s, we meet young Sasha, the daughter of refugees from Poland who have settled in France along with Kristof, a young psychiatrist from The Netherlands working in a Paris psychiatric hospital, who lives in the same building as Sasha and her family and who have befriended Kristof. . These characters are all exposed to difficult situations and the story takes on two journeys of their trials and challenges to survive. Both stories take place in tge same vicinity in Paris but hundreds of years apart. It was interesting to learn of the underground rivers in Paris which still exist today and how those underground channels were utilized for some to escape the oppression of the Nazis in the 1940s. An interesting story although it did get a little dense in the middle and meandered quite a bit. Interesting character development. Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advance copy in exchange for a candid and non biased review.

The Skylark by Paula McLain is storytelling at its finest. The stories told - of man’s cruelty and kindness, weakness and courage, despair and hope - are timeless. Our eternal life and legacy as illustrated by Skylark’s two tales, one mirroring the other in many ways. Whether in the Paris of 1664 (when one story is set) or in the occupied Paris of 1940 (the other story’s time), the characters face the same challenges of injustice, hatred, poverty, discrimination.
Skylark is so beautifully written, so engaging, that I cannot start another book - the characters ( including the city of Paris, ancient and more contemporary) are in my thoughts. I loved this book and recommend it highly.
I received an ARC of this book from Atria via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Beautiful writing but I didn’t really connect to the story that much. Not sure why it just didn’t work for me.

I had to quit part of the way through because I felt like I couldn't understand what was going on. The writing of the book is very good.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. I normally love Paula McLain but this book was not for me. The dual time periods didn’t work for me and I found the characters never really connected.. There is a dearth of WW2 historical fiction and a book really needs to stand out and this one did not. In some ways it reminded me of “All the Light You Can Not See,” but it never really got there. It was also way way too long.

Paula McLain has taken the slice of Paris that most intrigues me, the underground city, and spotlighted it in her spellbinding story. Not only that, McLain’s view that history shouldn’t be relegated to a dusty corner allows readers in the 21st century to experience an armchair journey that transcends time and informs our current days.

McLain’s characters are wonderfully crafted and imbued with courage and spunk. Alouette Voland sets aside her dream to rescue a family member and, as a result, finds a group of like-minded allies who fan the flames of a different flame for Alouette. Likewise, Kristof Larson sets aside his dream to help the less fortunate and discovers that, although his life is in jeopardy, like Alouette’s many decades later, it’s enriched by the power of kindness. McLain held my interest with unforgettable characters who refused to let others define their worth and fought to remain human in a world where humanity was often trampled. We could arm ourselves with the same outlook as we tread similar paths in today’s world.

The Paris underground has always been on my bucket list. McLain’s story has given me an armchair experience that will hold me until my piggy bank allows me to get back to the city of light.

I was gifted this copy and was under no obligation to provide a review.

I received a free ARC ebook of <i>Skylark</i> from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.
This dual timeline novel is about resilience and grit, humans finding the best in themselves and others while chaos and hate swirl around them.
In 17th century Paris, Alouette is the daughter of a guild dyer. She is consigned to lowly rote tasks because of her gender, but she secretly experiments to create a perfect blue. Her efforts land her in an asylum where she overcomes incredible cruelty.
In the other timeline, young Sasha and her Jewish family struggle to survive in Nazi occupied Paris. Kristof, the family's psychiatrist neighbor, offers gentle compassion as he bears witness to the treatment of mentally ill patients under German occupation.
Together, these two stories of endurance against all odds portray compassion and kindness against the backdrop of evil. This is a page-turner.

After reading McLain's Circling the Sun, I was up for her new book! I found it a compelling read. The story proceeds in dual timelines in Paris, one in 1664 and the other in 1942. The two are linked together by the hospital Salpetriere, the ancient underground tunnels of Paris, and the need to escape (the hospital and the Germans invaders). In 1664, Salpetriere women were treated for "hysteria" by approaches designed to crush their spirit into submission. The intense treatments were echoed in those of the early 20th century dealing with shell shock. In 1664, the protagonist Alouette is the daughter of a dyer working in the team making the Gobelin tapestries near Salpetriere. In 1942, the main character is Kristof, a young Dutch psychiatrist who working at Salpetriere.
The stories mostly alternate, with each chapter marked by date and location so it is easy to keep track. If you prefer to like the main characters (I do), they will be a big plus for you. And the plot(s) will keep you going too. In reading the book it is clear that a lot of research went into it.

This novel toggles between Paris in 1664 and Paris in 1939. In 1664 we get to know Aloutte whose father is a master dyer and she is pushing the bounds of societal norms by learning to dye fabrics as well. In 1939, Kristoff is a Dutch doctor who is seeing inhumane treatment of patients with PTSD from WWI morph into the Vichy collaboration with the Nazis and seeing how people were made to disappear. The stories are connected over time however, I was hoping for more of an aha moment at the end. I enjoyed the book and couldn't put it down. I did find the 1939 accounts to be eerily similar to some of the goings on in the US right now and found myself highlighting sage advice from 1939.

This is the second book I’ve read by this author. I’m looking forward to her next one. She brings WWII Paris to life . In this novel she parallels life of the poor, working class in 1642 France with life for Jews in 1942 France. Not only was it informative but highly captivating. I cared for each protagonist. For those interested in WWII, I highly recommend it. Five stars for the superlative elements of her writing.

While this novel started out a little slowly, the writing is so impeccable so I just went with the pace and enjoyed Paula McClain’s wonderful storytelling . Two time lines centuries apart, it was like reading two novels with seemingly only the slightest of connection until the pieces come together with hope and beauty. Different stories that are equally as compelling, both filled with characters to admire for their remarkable courage and steadfastness in the wake of harrowing and horrific circumstances.

In 1664 Saint Marcel, Paris , 18 year old Alouette whose name means skylark longs to be an artist, a master dyer like her father, but instead is locked into a place where women in this time are not free as the bird she is named after . When her father is arrested, she’s taken to an insane asylum , enduring with others horrific “treatment” , but fortunately forging friendships with other women of strength and resilience who fight not just to endure but to survive.

In 1939 - 1942 Paris , Kristof Larsen , a resident doctor in psychiatry works through his residency with others to save patients from “removal” as Germany invades France and takes over the hospital. A knock on the door of the Jewish family who live in his building changes their lives and his forever, deeply affecting Kristof who has become part of the bold and brave resistance. It’s a novel about the will to survive , clinging to hope, and two journeys towards freedom in the midst of loss .

“Great tragedies don’t ask for great heroes—they ask for ordinary people willing to do the next right thing.” Wise words from one of the character’s grandmother. There were ordinary characters here who were extraordinary in doing the right thing.

I received a copy of this from Atria through NetGalley .

Circling the Sun is one of my favorite books, so I'm always excited to see a new Paula McLain. In Skylark, she splits her timelines between 1664 and 1939, two time periods that would seem to have little in common, but what ties them together is the underground maze of tunnels beneath the city of Paris.

Alouette is the daughter of a master dyer for the Gobelin Tapestry Works, and she has been surreptitiously experimenting with color on her own, something forbidden by the dyer's Guild. This will put her father 's life in peril, and put her in the notorious Salpêtrière asylum. Fortunately, or perhaps not so, her suitor works as a tunneler and she has been in part of the maze once. But it is a maze. Can it help her escape?

In 1939, Kristof Larson is a Dutch medical student whose neighbors are a Jewish family escaped from Poland. They are his only friends apart from another medical student who brings him into resistance meetings in the tunnels, which are also being explored by the Nazis. You know where this is going--he has a sense the tunnels but so do the Nazis.

Skylark with a gush of writing about the wonder of color before it settles down to storytelling. The two stories are each interesting, but they go too long without some sense of what's going to connect them. The characters of the children burn the brightest, and I would have enjoyed more of them. It's a good novel, but it drags in the middle. The denouement is satisfying and worth getting to.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a digital review copy of Skylark. All opinions are my own.

Skylark, by Paula McLain, is a dual timeline story connecting two stories of escape, one from a mental institution in Paris in the 1600s and the second of Jews in Paris in the 1940s. Both use the underground tunnels dug by hand to build Paris. They are both stories of unjust persecution and freedom sought. It is not an easy read, but it is worthwhile. I was able to read an ARC on #Netgalley.com.