At her mother's funeral, Jeanne can't help but wonder why they hadn't been closer when suddenly a cryptic remark from a relative upends her life. The woman now in her grave was not her biological mother. Confronting her father, he admitted this was true. He had met her biological mother, Laurence, during his time in the Air Force during WW II, and they had fallen in love. He had rescued Jeanne and brought only her to the US. Now, all these years later he gives Jeanne a box containing a deed to a bookstore located in a small town outside of Paris. The store had been left to her. She needs answers to so many questions, so they travel to France with the hope of piecing together the past.
THE PARIS NETWORK, by Siobhan Curham, is told in two different timelines, the early 1940s and 1993. Readers learn that Laurence and her friends fought the Nazis in every way they could. Their love for France and her freedom put their lives in constant danger. Inspired by true events and impeccably researched and detailed, Laurence's story comes alive, and little by little the facts of her part in the Resistance are revealed to Jeanne and her father. Laurence found strength within herself she didn't know she had and despite all the horror of the times, she even found love. Her legacy would last for generations. Would Jeanne choose to preserve it?
THE PARIS NETWORK is a moving and emotional work of historical fiction. It is a story of bravery, sacrifice and love. It is well worth reading. Highly recommended.
Paris, 1940: He pressed the tattered book into her hands. ‘You must go to the café and ask at the counter for Pierre Duras. Tell him that I sent you. Tell him you’re there to save the people of France.’
Sliding the coded message in between the crisp pages of the hardback novel, bookstore owner Laurence slips out into the cold night to meet her resistance contact, pulling her woollen beret down further over her face. The silence of the night is suddenly shattered by an Allied plane rushing overhead, its tail aflame, heading down towards the forest. Her every nerve stands on end. She must try to rescue the pilot.
But straying from her mission isn’t part of the plan, and if she is discovered it won’t only be her life at risk…
America, years later: when Jeanne uncovers a dusty old box in her father’s garage, her world as she knows it is turned upside down. She has inherited a bookstore in a tiny French village just outside of Paris from a mysterious woman named Laurence.
Travelling to France to search for answers about the woman her father has kept a secret for years, Jeanne finds the store tucked away in a corner of the cobbled main square. Boarded up, it is in complete disrepair. Inside, she finds a tiny silver pendant hidden beneath the blackened, scorched floorboards.
As Jeanne pieces together Laurence’s incredible story, she discovers a woman whose bravery knew no bounds. But will the truth about who Laurence really is shatter Jeanne’s heart, or change her future?
Inspired by true events, an epic and emotional novel about one woman’s strength to survive in the most difficult circumstances and the power of love in the face of darkness. Fans of The Alice Network, The Nightingale and The Lost Girls of Paris will be completely gripped from the very first page.
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