Review: The Paris Secret by Natasha Lester

The Paris Secret 

By Natasha Lester

1928: Skye Penrose is a free-spirited 10 year old, growing up in an isolated Cornish cottage with her irascible younger sister Liberty and her outcast mother, when she meets 11 year old Nicholas Crawford. They quickly form the kind of close friendship that can only be described as soulmates.

1939: Skye, now a talented pilot, joins the war effort in the limited way she is allowed to by the men who don’t believe women should be able to fly planes. In her dangerous role, she comes across her estranged sister and Nicholas, who she hasn’t seen since she was 14, and who is now engaged to Frenchwoman Margaux Jourdan.

1947: Christian Dior releases his first collection of clothing to a country and world desperate for beauty and extravagance after years of war and utter despair. He names a perfume after his flower-loving, Resistance-fighting sister Catherine.

2012: Kat Jourdan is a fashion conservator, who comes across a wardrobe full of 65 haute couture Dior gowns in a Cornish cottage she had no idea her grandmother owns. When Kat is approached by an author researching a spy named Margaux Jourdan who worked for the SOE in the war, Kat thinks it can’t possibly be her grandmother. But how well do we really know the history of the people we love? Is Margaux who Kat thinks she is?

With several timelines and characters, this book could easily have been confusing – but it was so deftly written it was really simple to keep track of who was who. Despite these many moments in time, I would still call this a dual narrative novel, with the focus mainly switching between the years of WW2 and 2012. With books like this, usually there is one storyline I’m more interested in, but I was excited each time the story flipped – I loved the way the plot was teased out between the different perspectives, and how it left me trying to put it all together. The underlying mystery through the narrative had me moving through theories faster than I get through a bag of crispy M&Ms!

I felt so frustrated on behalf of Skye and the other female pilots who worked for the ATA – women who were extremely talented, capable and strong, being dismissed as nothing but a skirt with red lipstick. I thought Natasha Lester wrote that aching, burning longing for Skye and the others to be recognised, or at least acknowledged, for her skill incredibly well.

The extent of research that clearly went into this book to be able to describe the various military divisions, operations and auxiliaries made this book feel completely authentic. This is the first of Lester’s books that I have read, but I have a couple of others hiding in my shelves that will definitely be pulled out now.

**BIT OF A SPOILER BELOW**

The ending of this was written SO WELL. In these types of books, where there is a very strong love story, it’s human nature to want a ‘happy ending’. I love that the ending of this book was at once devastating, heart warming, satisfying and realistic. The idea that two people can miss out on a lifetime of love due to a simple misunderstanding is just heartbreaking.

Well, in case you haven’t worked it out already, I loved this book – and I think fellow fans of WW2 historical fiction will love it too. In fact, I wish I had read this book before I had written this blog post, as The Paris Secret would have been on this list for sure.

The Paris Secret is published by Hachette.

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