The Paris Apartment

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Narrator: Clare Corbett, Daphne Kouma, Julia Winwood, Sope Dirisu, Sofia Zervudachi & Charlie Anson There were two slight shortcomings for me: one is that there is no real sense of place in this book other than the apartment building. I could totally visualize it, but it could be set anywhere, Paris doesn't really factor into the story. Also, the timeline is quite jumpy, and there were a few times I would have to re-read certain sections because I thought I was in the present and then it turned out I was in the past, and vice versa. It didn't happen really often, but often enough that I noticed it.

Anyway, Sophie sees what happened and covers up for Mimi. We had learned that Sophie had worked at the club and eventually married Jacques and tried to change her entire image. But he was a cruel and evil man and so she hated him and wasn’t too sad to see him gone. However, she did somewhat care for Ben, and decided to keep him alive but hidden. The story culminated into a very emotional ending. I loved every bit of this well written, heart breaking and heart warming story full of hope.First of all, how great to be in Paris as it adds an atmosphere all of its own especially as the city is a boiling pot of political unrest which perfectly matches the events in Rue des Amants. Secondly, the house is a star of its own show as the author cleverly uses all its nooks, crannies and corners to create a very strange and tense atmosphere which you feel right from the very start. There are spooky shadows, you wonder what evil lurks in the dark corners and it ramps up the tension with a growing sense of claustrophobia as if the walls are closing in. You have a really good whodunnit here as several characters behave oddly or suspiciously, some are downright sinister or there’s palpable hostility between characters and there’s an increased feeling of foreboding which hangs over the house. The warnings, threats and dangers magnify in intensity and it becomes apparent that there big secrets that people are intent on keeping buried. The plot builds well as revelation piles on revelation. There’s a good twist at the end although maybe it’s all ultimately resolved a bit too easily? DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Harper Collins UK and Harper Collins Audio via Netgalley for providing both digital and audio ARCs of The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

But it also left me with plenty of questions too. If Ben knew just exactly what type of business Jacques ran and how toxic he was—why did he want to stay at the apartment? Characters There is a little bit of romance between Lia and Gabriel and I would've enjoyed this book even more if the romance was more developed. The ending of the book is very emotional and it made me cry! I highly recommend The Paris Apartment to historical fiction fans and francophiles. THE WRITING – Ms. Foley’s writing is fluid, flows well and is very descriptive. I felt myself immersed in the heat of a Paris summer, riots breaking out in the city, tourists sweltering in the heat!! Lots of dirt and garbage behind the facade of the “beautiful city” with it’s Eiffel tower and The Louvre. Allie Reynolds’ Shiver follows a group of professional snowboarders who travel to the French Alps for a summer of high-pressured events and competitions. The nature of the athletes leads to a hyper-competitive environment where each of them attempts to outdo the other, with potentially deadly consequences. But she seems to make Ben’s neighbors very uncomfortable, as they barely tolerate Jess, her probing questions, and the insinuation into their lives and explosive secrets…When a woman inherits a Parisian apartment undisturbed since WWII, she discovers that it may hold the key to unraveling her cold and distant great-grandmother's secret life -- a past of sacrifice during a mission to protect those she loved.”

In the present, Aurelia Leclaire inherits an apartment in Paris when her grandmother Estelle passes away. An apartment that has been closed up since 1943 and which is full of priceless art. What Lia discovers in the apartment makes her question if she ever really knew her grandmother. With the help of an art appraiser Gabriel Seymour, she learns the provenance of the paintings and her grandmother's role in the French resistance. He stops speaking. Hesitates, listens. A noise. The sound of footsteps out on the landing . . . approaching the apartment door. there's more weight to this one than The Hunting Party/ The Guest List—it's more ambitious in structure and content than the fluffy drawing room-style mysteries that preceded it, and it has a more meaningful story than fancy people getting murdered. not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's good to know she's got more in her than reheating a been-there-done-that plot. Overall, I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy Agatha Christie, Shari Lapena, and Ruth Ware. Amateur filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with an old mining town known as ‘The Lost Village’ and its long history of disappearances. Obsessed with how her grandmother’s entire family also disappeared from the face of the Earth in 1959, Alice assembles a small film crew and attempts to film what happened in this creepy setting.

The Paris Apartment Audiobook

A surprisingly subtle but important player in the tale is Paris itself. The bustling city with tourists and boulangeries provides contrast to the apartment building’s quiet seclusion and adds to the frenzied atmosphere of the story with police corruption and riots in the streets. Jess’s ventures into the foreign city are “a breath of fresh air,” showing just how suffocating and oppressive the apartment building really is. Foley takes us beneath the glitzy facade of Paris, the designer fashion shows, the Eiffel Tower, the West Bank cafes, and shares some of its dirty secrets.

as someone who values what little sleep i can scrape together, the above is what is known as a ringing endorsement. And, I was ENCHANTED as I listened to each character voice their secrets and obsessions to me, in wonderful English and French accents- enhancing the experience. BTW, it’s so strange how several of the family members fell in love with Ben though but also absolutely hated him. Why did Sophie act like she hated him if she kept him alive? Same with Mimi’s reaction about Ben. And what were they planning to do with him? I don’t know if I missed that or it was never explained. Strange. And lastly, when the plot reveals finally start happening in the last quarter of the book, they weren’t interesting enough to be worth the tedious lead-up.

Diaries & Calendars

Jess, a Londoner escaping her less-than-ideal job, arrives in Paris to stay with her brother, Ben, only to find him missing. From the very start, every character has something to hide. Foley spends much of the first half of her novel unwinding the threads connecting each character to Ben and their potential motives for his disappearance. The pace is rather slow and focuses more on developing the personalities of apartment building’s inhabitants than on the main mystery at hand. Delving into subplots of roommate drama, affairs, and extortion, Foley takes occasional detours from Ben’s disappearance. Despite leaving the reader impatient and wanting more action, this exposition provides much needed context for the latter half of the novel and builds the tension that makes the ending oh-so-satisfying. Option 2: Tighten the Events -- If Bowen felt the need to keep both narrative threads, I would have advised her to shorten the time span she was covering in both threads. There is much in her plots that was work that she could have kept in her preparation file folders, work that an author needs to do but that readers don't need to read. Had Bowen dropped us right into the middle of the Paris Ritz and the mission, she could have deepened the tension and provided much more detail. The same goes for her parallel tale in today's France, dropping the poor romance and focusing, instead, on the much more compelling mystery she'd concocted for her contemporary characters. Another strong female-led thriller, Shiver jumps between times in a similar way to what has become a staple in the Lucy Foley library.