Last Twilight in Paris by Pam Jenoff ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

A Parisian department store, a mysterious necklace, and a woman’s quest to unlock a decade-old mystery are at the center of this riveting novel of love and survival.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

February 2025; Park Row; 978-0778307983
audio, ebook, print (336 pages); historical fiction

Last Twilight in Paris is another fantastic well-written and well-researched book by Pam Jenoff.  I've read all of her books and she continues to amaze me with the books she writes.  This dual-timeline novel takes place during World War II in Paris and in 1953 in England and Paris.  It's also another book where I learned new things about the war and spent a lot of time goggling after I finished to read more about it.

During the War - Helaine was raised by her parents in a very well-to-do life.  She had been sick as a child so her parents kept her at home to keep her healthy but as she got older, she began to feel like a prisoner.  When she started to leave the house and take walks in her neighborhood, she met Gabriel, who was a cello player in an important orchestra but lived a very poor life.  When she made the decision to marry him, her parents refused to accept him and she became part of his very poor life.  She was Jewish so he worked to keep her safe until he had to go to Europe to play with the orchestra.  She was soon arrested and sent to Levitan.  This was once a great department store in Paris but now held Jewish prisoners who were made to sort through items that had been confiscated from Jewish people and were put on display for high-ranking Germans to buy and send home.  The prisoners were not treated as badly as the people in the camps but Helaine's main wish was to be reunited with her husband.

1953 - Louise lived with her husband and two children in England.  Her husband still suffered from what we would refer to today as PTSD due to the war.  She was happy taking care of her family but was still adjusting to a quiet life after what she had done during the war when she worked with the Red Cross in Europe and even went into Germany with the Red Cross group.  When she sees a necklace at a second-hand store, she knows that she had seen it at a camp in Germany during the war and believes that somehow it is tied to the mysterious death of her best friend in the Red Cross group.  She goes back to Paris to try to follow the trail of the necklace, the Levitan department store, and the death of her best friend.  Will she be able to find the truth or is someone effectively hiding the truth from her hoping that she'll give up her search?

This book was full of likable characters and my two favorites were Louise and Helaine.  Both were willing to take chances to help other people and managed to find the best in people even in the worst of situations.  This story is a mystery, a love story, and a look at two women who lived life in the worst of times as they struggled to survive. It's a story about compassion and forgiveness in an unsettled world - but mostly it's the story of how love can transcend even the worst situations.  

Buy Last Twilight in Paris at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is three hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.   

 

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