The Lost Girls of Paris

Publisher's Summary

From the author of the runaway best-seller The Orphan’s Tale comes a remarkable story of friendship and courage centered around three women and a ring of female spies during World War II.

Manhattan, 1946.

Grace Healey is rebuilding her life after losing her husband during the war. One morning while passing through Grand Central Terminal on her way to work, she finds an abandoned suitcase tucked beneath a bench. Unable to resist her own curiosity, Grace opens the suitcase, where she discovers a dozen photographs - each of a different woman. In a moment of impulse, Grace takes the photographs and quickly leaves the station.

Grace soon learns the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a ring of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war. Twelve of these women were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers and radio operators to aid the resistance, but they never returned home, their fates a mystery. Setting out to learn the truth behind the women in the photographs, Grace finds herself drawn to a young mother turned agent named Marie, whose daring mission overseas reveals a remarkable story of friendship, valor, and betrayal.

Vividly rendered and inspired by true events, New York Times best-selling author Pam Jenoff shines a light on the incredible heroics of the brave women of the war and weaves a mesmerizing tale of courage, sisterhood, and the great strength of women to survive in the hardest of circumstances.

©2019 Pam Jenoff (P)2019 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited

Critic Reviews

• Cosmopolitan best book club book of 2019
• PopSugar must-read book of 2019
   

"Fraught with danger, filled with mystery, and meticulously researched, The Lost Girls of Paris is a fascinating tale of the hidden women who helped to win the war." (Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours)

"Pam Jenoff’s meticulous research and gorgeous historical world-building lift her books to must-buy status. An intriguing mystery and a captivating heroine make The Lost Girls of Paris a read to savor!" (Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network)

Intriguing page turner

The story combined with the audio of the different characters voices made this novel come alive. I am a big fan of history and I enjoyed how the author changed the scenes from New York in 1946 to England/Paris 1944. The two stories at first seemed not related but the deeper you got into the novel the more it made sense. The author also painted a very descriptive traits of each character.

18 of 18 people found this review helpful

Wonderful story

I listened to Pam Jenoff's new book on audible.com.and LOVED the story,. It kept my attention throughout and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys strong female characters, historical fiction and intrigue. My only complaint was with one of the readers...the voice of Grace., The reader had a sing/song approach which made me cringe whenever it was her turn. I realize that readers can add drama when neededl, but the sing/song was a put-off. Authors have no input into who will be reading the various parts, so with this one exception, it's a marvelous book.

18 of 19 people found this review helpful

Had to keep reading

This was an excellent book. Made you feel like you were there with the descriptions and moving back and forth in years. Excellently written. A true must read.

12 of 13 people found this review helpful

Real Page Turner!

I loved this book of such strong women and was engaged and committed to the story for the whole book! Very well-written! My lower performance rating is due to one of the narrators. The woman who narrated Grace was awful. Her voice doesn’t belong in this story and is a distraction to Grace’s story. It almost sounds like someone’s meandering reminiscing by a camp fire, like Garrison Keeler of Lake Wobegon. There was zero intensity in her voice and everything sounded like a side note. Definitely not enough, and not appropriate, to immerse the reader further in the story.

The other two narrators were amazing!

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Interest with a plot.

The plot of The Lost Girls of Paris was captivating. Most of the characters were admirable and realistic. I felt like the espionage details needed more elaboration and there were too many gaps in the story line.
The narrator for Grace constantly uses an unnatural inflection which was extremely annoying.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

A great moving story of unknown heroes of WW II

Loved it to the end. No gaps in story.
Easy to listen to. Recomind higly to
WWII buff's.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Missed potential

A good story, but potentially much better. One character, Marie, is repeatedly advised by much more experienced agents to avoid certain actions. She goes ahead with disastrous results, but fails to learn from her mistakes.

I found the author's relentless description of the female agents as 'girls' to be grating. I grew up in the late 1940s and while that term was common, people were actually known to say 'women' as well.

Narration, particularly Grace, was not up to par.

7 of 8 people found this review helpful

Shallow & underdeveloped

It seems that everyone is getting on the WWII female spy fiction bandwagon. Some of these efforts are thoughtfully outlined & fleshed out & others not so much.

This falls into the underdeveloped category. This book starts & without much background the author has created the idea of relationships without proper support - strangers are suddenly in love. The mystery of this story became obvious pretty early on - at least to me. The links between people were so tenuous that it was hard to care. When the author finally takes the story to Germany to get “solve the mystery” it’s like she felt the need to check off holocaust related check boxes to complete her story. Striped jump suit - check; boxcar - check; mention of gas chamber-check. I really wanted to like this book, purchased it months in advance. Unfortunately the whole thing seems like a superficial retelling of better versions of this same story.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

LOVED THIS BOOK

Loved the story and the charactors. Full of suspense, horrors of war and a romance.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Good story

I enjoyed this novel and most of the narration was good except for Grace. That narrator was irritating. Maybe it was how she thought Grace should be portrayed but I didn’t care for it.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful