By Kelly Bridgewater
Based on true accounts of how Parisiennes resisted the Nazi occupation in World War II—from fashion houses to the city streets—comes a story of two courageous women who risked everything to fight an evil they couldn’t abide.
Paris, 1939. Maison Chanel has closed, thrusting haute couturedressmaker Lila de Laurent out of the world of high fashion as Nazi soldiers invade the streets and the City of Lights slips into darkness. Lila’s life is now a series of rations, brutal restrictions, and carefully controlled propaganda while Paris is cut off from the rest of the world. Yet in hidden corners of the city, the faithful pledge to resist. Lila is drawn to La Resistanceand is soon using her skills as a dressmaker to infiltrate the Nazi elite. She takes their measurements and designs masterpieces, all while collecting secrets in the glamorous Hôtel Ritz—the heart of the Nazis’ Parisian headquarters. But when dashing René Touliard suddenly reenters her world, Lila finds her heart tangled between determination to help save his Jewish family and bolstering the fight for liberation.
Paris, 1943. Sandrine Paquet’s job is to catalog the priceless works of art bound for the Führer’s Berlin, masterpieces stolen from prominent Jewish families. But behind closed doors, she secretly forages for information from the underground resistance. Beneath her compliant façade lies a woman bent on uncovering the fate of her missing husband . . . but at what cost? As Hitler’s regime crumbles, Sandrine is drawn in deeper when she uncrates an exquisite blush Chanel gown concealing a cryptic message that may reveal the fate of a dressmaker who vanished from within the fashion elite.
Told across the span of the Nazi occupation, The Paris Dressmakerhighlights the brave women who used everything in their power to resist darkness and restore light to their world.
My Thoughts:
The Paris Dressmaker by Kristy Cambron is a World War II novel with a delightful cover that I loved looking at. As for the story, it was not actually what I was expecting. The plot line was interesting, and I really loved the idea of the Paris Resistance fighters and all the undercover work that they did during the 1939 – 1944. It was interesting and a little different than most novels I have read. It was a delight, BUT . . . the issue I had with the story was the delivery of the plot lines. I have read a number of timeslips novels and have no problem following the story. It usually goes back and forth between two heroines or heroes in two different time frames, but Cambron took two heroines and placed them in a number of different time frames. First, the reader starts out in 1944, then jumps back to 1939, then to 1943, then back to 1940. Sometimes when I started a new chapter, I would be confused as to what is going on. I would have to find whose perspective I was in, and the time period to see where we were out in the narrative. I really wished the story would have been told in a linear fashion. It would have been easier to follow. The romance sparkled and blossomed as the story progressed. The story, once I understood what was actually happening, evoked a sense of Parisian pride. Overall, Cambron crafted a wonderful story with unheard elements, which I liked, but the flip-flopping of the timeline confused me.
I received a complimentary copy of The Paris Dressmaker by Kristy Cambron from Thomas Nelson Publishing, but the opinions stated are all my own.
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Purchase The Paris Dressmaker
No comments:
Post a Comment