Heartbroken and alone, Boston art curator Sarah West is
grieving the recent deaths of her parents and the end of her
marriage. Ultra-sensible by nature, she’s determined to stay
the course to get her life back on track. But fate has
something else in mind. While cleaning out her father’s
closet, she finds a letter from the famous Parisian
courtesan Marthe de Florian, dated 1895. The subject?
Sarah’s great-great-aunt Louisa’s death. Legend has it
Louisa committed suicide…but this letter implies there’s
more to that story.
Determined to learn the truth, Sarah, against her nature,
impulsively flies to Paris. There she’s drawn into the world
of her flatmate, the brilliant artist Laurent Chartier. As
she delves deep into the glittering Belle Époque to unravel
the mystery, Sarah finds that her aunt’s story may offer her
exactly what she needs to open up to love again.
Following Sarah in the present day and Louisa in the 1890s,
this moving novel spans more than a century to tell the
stories of two remarkable women.