Eight Weeks in Paris

I love when it pays off to take a chance on a book. I was just wondering when I'd find a new romance to obsess over, like The Charm Offensive last year, and I think this will be this year's God Tier Romance. I was just SO invested!

To be honest I am, in general, a huge sucker for any book with famous main characters, and it was just so well done here. We have Famous Actor, Nicholas, who's such a huge grump that he's known as The Big Bad Wolf of Hollywood. And we have Famous Model/Influencer, Christian. They are co-stars in a movie adaptation of a long lost queer classic novel, and Nicholas does not think Christian is up to the task, since he has no acting experience. But then they start rehearsing and he's like: OH.

One thing that makes me SO invested when I'm reading a romance is a good amount of yearning, especially when the writing style matches it. And this book's writing style is sort of reminiscent of a historical romance in all the good ways.

I'm a little surprised that I'm the first person to really review this and that I haven't seen more hype around this, because it deserves it so much! I absolutely adored it.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

📖 Q: have you ever been to Paris?

Eight Weeks in Paris by S.R. Lane is one of those books that I just fell into—it’s a blissful (& also angsty) Paris-set trope-fest that engaged me on every level & felt like Moulin Rouge meets French Kiss.

Trope-wise, this is opposites attract, sunshine & the grumpy, coworkers, caretaking, stormed in, forced proximity. (Do you hear my heart going pitter patter?)

Nicholas Madden is a “serious actor” who gives me Richard from Lucy Parker’s Act Like It vibes. He’s got a grumpy, temper-fueled, brilliant rep & he’s very invested in the current film he’s starring in with Chris Lavalle, a stunningly attractive man mostly known as a model & influencer.

Including film scenes + real life scenes it’s easy to see the two becoming confused—something the book really makes clear—especially as both leads wrestle their feelings over the magnetism of their relationship & as Nicholas in particular considers what he might lose by publicly coming out.

The writing & plot are sublime, the emotion is so stirring, & this is the kind of book I could read again & again bc there’s so much there. I wish I could have read more past HEA, especially since the big fight hurt me so bad 😆.

5 big ⭐️ for this one. Please check it out! Release date: 05/31.

ID: a white hand holds up an ebook in front of an open hardback. Behind is a painting of a white woman wearing a nineteenth century white and red polka dotted dress; it rests on a desk & against a bright yellow wall.]

Oh, so you’re expecting me to actually talk about this book? Well, that seems rude but okay I guess.

This is a hard book to recommend. Please don’t misunderstand, I say it’s hard to recommend not through any fault of its own but because it’s akin to offering someone a piece of my heart for judgment, to be weighed and have the possibility of being found wanting. It feels like exposing a raw nerve, and if I ever directly recommend this book to you please know that means I trust you with the tenderest and most vulnerable parts of me.

“Eight Weeks In Paris” takes us to the City of Lights just as production is about to start on the long awaited movie adaptation of the novel ‘The Throne’, a Queer story from the Belle Époque with a cult following for its rare and cherished (though fraught and hard won) hopeful tone.

Nicholas “The Big Bad Wolf of Hollywood” Madden, A-list actor, 2 Golden Globes, Closeted.
Christian Lavalle, model, 1.5M instagram followers, out and proud French hearthrob.
In short, a recipe for disaster you won’t want to miss.

This book was very personal for me. Not only did I see myself in Nicholas and Chris both but the nostalgia of my beloved Paris was almost too much for me. Set in the Grands Boulevards, a place I have called Home at multiple times in my life, this could’ve gone very much awry if it hadn’t been written, quite clearly, by someone who lives or has lived in Paris.

I was drawn in from the first. With beautiful prose, cutting insight into the human condition and so much heart, this was a truly stunning debut for S. R. Lane. I find myself in that Mr. Knightley conundrum of “if I loved it less I could talk about it more.”

“Eight Weeks In Paris” by S.R. Lane is out today! Thank you Carina Press for one of my favorite reads of the year, and you can bet I bought myself a physical copy.