Synopsis:
Paris, 1940: War is closing in on the city of love. With his wife forced into hiding, Jacques must stand by and watch as the Nazis take away everything he holds dear. Everything except his last beacon of hope: his beloved bookshop, La Page Cachée.
But when a young woman and her child knock on his door one night and beg for refuge, he knows his only option is to risk it all once more to save a life…
Modern day: Juliette and her husband have finally made it to France on the romantic getaway of her dreams – but as the days pass, all she discovers is quite how far they’ve grown apart. She’s craving a new adventure, so when she happens across a tiny, abandoned shop with a for-sale sign in the window, it feels fated.
And she’s about to learn that the forgotten bookshop hides a lot more than meets the eye…
My reading experience:
Firstly I would like to thank the author, publisher and Netgalley for my free ARC.
The story has two timelines, of Jacques and Mathilde during the Second World War ((1939-1945), and of Juliette in contemporary times. At first I thought that this was too factual to be the usual romanticised Second World War story and I was right. I thoroughly enjoyed the author’s focus on the French Resistance, yes it was ‘romantic’ but it also gave the reader (to a degree) the perspective of the persecuted.
Juliette is dealing with a more modern trope, a cheating husband, and although the story of a betrayed woman ‘rising from the ashes like a phoenix’ is a bit of a cliche, it is also inspiring. So this is what Juliette does and in doing so, discovers her connection to Jacques and Mathilde, and this gives her new energy and solace.
I absolutely loved this story and the authors writing style, her development of characters and her focus. I immediately purchased another book by Daisy Wood and look forward to reading it.
I highly recommend The Forgotten Bookshop by Daisy Wood
Appletree Books 