Last Twilight in Paris

By: Pam Jenoff

Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer, Saskia Maarleveld

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

"A fast-paced and vibrant wartime tale of holding on to love against the odds and learning to fight for the truth." ­­–Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Daughter

A Parisian department store, a mysterious necklace and a woman’s quest to unlock a decade-old mystery are at the center of this riveting novel of love and survival, from New York Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff

London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before, when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe —and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend Franny during the war.

Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise seeks help from her former boss Ian, with whom she shares a romantic history. The necklace leads them to discover the dark history of Lévitan—a once-glamorous department store that served as a Nazi prison, and Helaine, a woman who was imprisoned there, torn apart from her husband when the Germans invaded France.

Louise races to find the connection between the necklace, the department store and Franny’s death. But nothing is as it seems, and there are forces determined to keep the truth buried forever. Inspired by the true story of Lévitan, Last Twilight in Paris is both a gripping mystery and an unforgettable story about sacrifice, resistance and the power of love to transcend in even the darkest hours.

I felt the characters.

The emotions felt during the second half of this book made it difficult to turn off. A nice story of personal effort and promise of fulfillment while also portraying how naive and horrible humanity can be.

a tale of two women in WWII

The author always writes World War II stories involving the Jewish people in some form or another. They are set in different countries, Poland, France, the UK, etc. The setting for this one is mostly Paris.

The author weaves a tale with two women at the stories core, one British, the other a French Jew. The story is a time slip taking place some in the 1930s before the war, some in the 40s during the war and some in the 50s. after the war.

I'm not an expert in how Jews in France were treated during the war but I know they weren't treated any better than anywhere else in Europe at that time. I knew many Jews had first been to a velodrome type of place before being processed to go further east where nothing good happened. The author in doing her research about the war learned that there were actually three sorts of auxiliary locations that served as prisons for Jews that for different reasons had a privileged status and were treated at least a little better but, most importantly, were not sent on east from there. unless they did something wrong.

The author then crafts a story around a locket that affected both ladies' lives in very meaningful ways.

This is a typical Jenoff tale, at least in my mind. Historical fiction centered around WWII involving Jews that were being persecuted and, while not being terrifying, comminate the horrors of the war but done in a heartwarming, in the end, fashion. I've enjoyed all of this author's books.

Story line

There was too much coincidence. It made the story less believable and therefore less impactful.

Women and WWIi

This audiobook was enjoyable, heartbreaking, empowering! The way that lives interchanged and crossed remind us that things may happen by chance, but often for a reason

Not Her Best!

Sadly, I just didn’t enjoy this book from an author I usually read/listen to. The story really dragged along and wasn’t what I had expected… Frankly, it was pretty boring! As for these narrators, they are both terrific performers, but I think with this book, they had very little to work with, and could not engage the listener.