The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris
Daisy Wood
Until the end, when the two finally come together, this is really two completely different storylines connected only by a specific location.
In 1940, war is closing in on the city of Paris. When the Germans take over the city, Jacques and Mathilde have only been married for a short time. Itching to resist in whatever way she can, Mathilde soon puts herself at risk and must flee to safety in the south of France while Jacques stays behind and continues to operate his beloved bookstore, La Page Cachée. Hiding first banned books, and then people seeking refuge and a way to escape the city, in a hidden storeroom in his shop, Jacques too becomes involved in the resistance.
In 2022, Juliette, whose deceased grandmother was born in Paris, and her husband, Kevin, take a long awaited trip to the city of love. Armed only with a photograph of a painting that used to hang in her grandmother’s house in America, Juliette searches for and locates the small city square depicted in the painting. Discovering that her husband has been having an affair, she decides to stay behind in Paris and forge a new life for herself. There she finds passion and purpose in purchasing a small abandoned bookstore on the square that appeared in her grandmother’s painting, renovating it, and opening The Forgotten Bookshop.
I loved this book! Partially, perhaps, because I’ve always thought that if I was ever to open a business, it would be a bookstore, but also because I became completely engrossed in both storylines. Each time the book switched from past to present or vice versa, I was almost disappointed because I was so captivated by whichever story I was reading at the moment! Both heartwarming and heartbreaking, the well-researched wartime story with its very believable characters could easily stand alone. The modern story was a little more cliched, but until the very end, it kept me wondering how the two storylines would come together.
Daisy Wood has written several works of historical fiction for children and this is her second adult novel. As soon as I finished it, I ordered her first, The Clockmaker’s Wife, from the library. While The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris is my favourite of the two, I enjoyed that one too.
Geertruida (Truus) Wijsmuller, a childless member of the Dutch resistance, risks her life smuggling Jewish children out of Nazi Germany to the nations that will take them. It is a mission that becomes even more dangerous after Hitler’s annexation of Austria when, across Europe, countries begin to close their borders to the growing number of refugees desperate to escape. After Britain passes a measure to take in at-risk child refugees from the German Reich, Tante Truus, as she is known by the children, dares to approach Adolf Eichmann, the man who would later help devise the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” and is granted permission to escort a trainload of 600 children (not 599 or 601, but exactly 600) out of the country. In a race against time, 600 children between the ages of 4 and 17 are registered, photographed, checked by medical doctors and put on board the train to begin a perilous journey to an uncertain future abroad. Thus begins the famous Kindertransport system that went on to transport thousands of children out of various parts of Europe during the Nazi occupation of the region in the late 1930s, immediately prior to the official start of World War II.
After reading Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, a 713 page novel about life in India in the 1970s and 80s, and then Timothy Keller’s The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, I was looking for something light to read! Something frivolous and entertaining.
Rachael English is a novelist and a presenter on Ireland’s most popular radio programme, Morning Ireland. In her most recent novel, inspired by true events, the lives of three remarkable women are interwoven across time.
This month’s book was a difficult read because of the content, but at the same time, it was difficult to put down!
Nadia Hashimi’s second adult novel is the gripping story of a mother and her children fleeing Afghanistan after the brutal murder of her husband by the Taliban. Their one hope is to find refuge with her sister’s family in London, England. It’s also the story of Fereiba’s teenage son, Saleem, who becomes separated from the family as they make their perilous journey into Iran, Turkey and across Europe. 
The first book in the series, My Name is Lucy Barton, reads like a memoir to such an extent that when I finished it, I actually researched the author to find out whether or not it was autobiographical. Though there are parallels, particularly in the facts that, like Strout, Lucy Barton is a writer and both were raised in rural areas somewhat isolated from other children, the similarities end there.
As a child, I loved playing pretend. You probably did too, but as we got older, real life pressed in and the world of make-believe was all but forgotten. Apparently, not so for retired high school English teacher, Sue Burpee, who has hosted two virtual parties for the readers of her blog, 
Following Augustine 