In this story, you meet Charlotte, who owns a book store in Paris, in 1940. She has an infant whose father is killed in the war. Charlotte meets a patron, a German Nazi soldier, who brings her food and medicine for herself and her infant daughter. While this all takes place in Paris during WW2, I felt the story was more about the suffering and survivor's guilt of having lived through this nightmare. The guilt that Charlotte feels for what she did to survive haunts her after the war life in the 1950s in New York.. #netgalley #parisneverleavesyou

A different perspective on the war from people living in Paris and living with the rations. Not being a 'Jew until Hitler made me one" really made me think about living at that time/place. Books play an important role in peoples lives at that time as they do today. Reminds me how important our job as Booksellers really is. Great read!

This was absolutely haunting and beautiful. Following in the steps of Sarah's Key and The Nightingale, this captures the horror of occupied Paris and the strength of the women who endured and ultimately triumphed. Just as captivating are the chapters set in a Mad Men era 1950s publishing world.

Thought provoking and memorable, I know that Charlotte's story is one I will not soon forget. Beautfully written, Ellen Feldman manages to capture two very different settings, although only a decade apart as well as the voices of both Charlotte and her daughter, Vivi. I loved this novel and the characters in it!

I liked this book! It is a book about surviving WWII and feeling quite guilty about surviving WWII! We begin the story in 1944 Paris and then we travel to 1954 New York.

There is a lot in between, of course, and I encourage you to read this if you are a fan of WWII with a bit of romance added in for good measure.

My thanks to Netgalley and St Martins Press for this advanced readers copy. This book is due to release in June 2020.

In depth and well written, Paris Never Leaves You was a journey into lies, survival, and forgiveness. I could not put it down, through all the twists, turns, and roller coaster of emotion that Charlotte’s back story relates to her present. I normally don’t like books that bounce back and forth in time, but in this case it was worth it and it works. It weaves a tale no one could ever forget.

When we first meet Charlotte Foret and her four-year-old daughter Vivi, she rips the yellow star from her dress and flee from a German detention camp as the Allies liberate it in 1944, leaving behind the horror and chaos that had been their lives in occupied Paris.

In 1954, they are living in a Manhattan apartment, upstairs from Charlotte’s employer and his wife. Vivi is attending a private school on a scholarship. Harold Field’s wheelchair is a permanent reminder of the brutality of the war he fought, and his desire to be bold in the publishing field is one of the defining principles of his firm. Charlotte, multilingual and Sorbonne-educated, edits and assists in selecting manuscripts. Hannah Field, who lost her accreditation when she came to America, nevertheless maintains a psychoanalytic practice from the apartment, and helps care for Vivi.

On the surface, these Jewish immigrants are assimilated, successful citizens in their adopted country, their traumas mostly subsumed by their new lives. No one knows about Charlotte’s vivid flashbacks of synagogues exploding, old men being dragged into the street, photographs of women collaborators tortured, the sounds of breaking glass. No one knows that Howard was nominated for a Congressional Medal of Honor (which he did not want), but was rejected because he is a Jew.

Although she remembers nothing of her life in France, Vivi is concerned with the normal trials of being a teenager, one of the very small number of Jews in her school. She knows that her father died, but has never seen a photograph. She knows that she is Jewish, but Charlotte has told her that both she and her Vivi’s father were non-practicing atheists. Vivi begins to question her sense of ethics and identity when Charlotte offers equivocal advice about upholding the school’s code of honor when a fellow student cheats on a test. Invited to a friend’s party, and buying a beautiful dress for the occasion, she is shocked to learn that she has been disinvited because her friend’s grandmother hates Jews. As she begins to focus on her Jewish identity, she wants to learn about - and experience - Judaism, going so far as to accept the gift of a menorah from a neighborhood merchant, lighting the candles in private (and causing a shocking encounter with the usually-kindly Howard), and beginning to identify the casual antisemitism in such classics as The House of Mirth. Charlotte’s oft-repeated remark -- that Hitler made her a Jew - puzzles her more than ever.

Intertwined is the story of Paris is a German officer, a doctor, who befriends Charlotte and Vivi in the bookstore she owned. His kindness contrasts with his Nazi commission, and scrambles all of Charlottes defenses amidst the cruelty of those times. What became of him? Who was he, really? In the present, Charlotte tries to ignore a letter that might be from him, but, sometimes, painful truths are the only anodyne for deep pain.

Each of these characters is dealing with what we would now call post-traumatic stress, complicated by the secrets each have kept from themselves and each other. All of them question their identity, and the responsibilities that identities impose. Each has broken laws, both personal, and those imposed by circumstance. How will history judge them? How will you?

With vivid characterization and scene-setting, and a fluid plot that deftly entwines these people. This intense novel will never leave you.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC to review. Five stars.

3.5* The premis seemed promising, since I'm a HUGE historical fiction fan, but the story as a whole fell a bit short for me. I did enjoy learning about what it was like to run a business in a war torn Paris. I'll definitely try another book by this author. Thanks so much to NetGalley for the opportunity to read Paris Never Leaves You.

This story about a woman who faced life in Paris during World War II moves fluidly back and forth between the 1940s and 1950s, when Charlotte Floret and her daughter live in New York.
Charlotte runs a bookshop in Paris, occupied by the Germans. There is hunger, deportations, blackouts and their day-to-day existence is questionable.
Charlotte and her daughter do make it to safety, and in New York, she works in a publishing house. She and the people who surround her all have dark secrets about their lives.
I was a little uncertain when beginning this book because it takes a deft hand to weave stories together when there is a time difference. Feldman does it well, though.

Rather than follow female resistance fighters, this novel highlights the struggles of Collaborators who were also trying to survive, feed their children, and make it through the occupation alive.

I knew I had to read this book as soon as I read the description and I was not disappointed. I felt that Ellen Feldman tackled a different part of World War II history. It was thought-provoking and I couldn’t help but wonder how I would react in the same situation. This novel is chalk full of flawed characters who don’t have the foresight to know how and if the war is going to end. They make the best decisions they can based on their current circumstances. Sometimes I was annoyed, frustrated or disappointed with the main characters, other times I fully agreed and understood their reasoning and actions. It’s a different kind of WWII novel and it’s one that I believe a lot of people are going to enjoy.

Charlotte, a young widow in occupied France runs her family bookstore with her baby, Vivi in tow. She endeavors to provide enough food for her daughter but with the scarcity, her daughter is severely underweight. Julian Bauer, a German army doctor begins to frequent the shop, buying books and providing much needed nourishment and medications for Vivi which Charlotte begrudgingly accepts. An unlikely and dangerous friendship is forged.

Years later in New York City, Charlotte is working for a publishing company reading manuscripts. It’s only 1950 and as the war is still too fresh, she steers the publisher away from anything related to it. Charlotte cannot escape her own past as letters from the doctor sporadically arrive, yet remain unopened. Vivi, now a teenager yearns to know more about her father, her family and the country she comes from.

Charlotte is reticent; if her secrets are revealed their lives will be forever changed.

I received an advance copy of this novel; all opinions are my own.

This one features Charlotte and her daughter Vivienne who are struggling to survive during the war in Paris and then alternates with another timeline about 10 years later in New York.

Here’s what I liked about this one – learning a bit more about what it was like to run a business in war-torn Paris. The premise seemed very promising, a bookstore in Paris during WWII and some Resistance mentions. I also enjoyed a peek into the publishing world in the 1950s.

There are a few things I struggled with – the popular dual storyline seemed a bit disjointed in this one. It might have been better to tell in chronological order. Maybe because Charlotte was reserved and secretive, I never warmed to her character. I never really got invested in the two love stories either.

At the end of the day, a book with a lot of promise that didn’t quite deliver for me as a reader. If historical fiction is your jam, I wouldn’t discourage you from reading it, but for my tastes there are a lot more compelling tales out there.

I enjoyed this story written with alternating stories. Well written and engrossing. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley.

This author is new to me but I will be going back to read some of her earlier works after reading this one. What I thought was just a typical WW2 book had so many different twists along the way. I enjoyed the different perspective on a family that has survived the war and how they are making their way after. Feldman shows the effects of war can be long reaching and have many consequences. She does a great job of putting a face to the struggles and I really came to care for the characters. Especially Vivi. I will definitely recommend this book when it is published.

A story with Paris, a book shop, a publishing house and set in the past and present sounds like a great idea.

Charlotte was a difficult character to know. I didn't feel as if I knew any more of her story than what we knew at the beginning. 

What was her sin? We know people who did whatever they had to do to survive the Nazi regime. They lied, they took food from the enemy, some even informed on their own people. But Charlotte wasn't one of them. And where this war is concerned, people aren't so forgiving of those who did what she did.

The entire thing felt disjointed and shallow. Not my cup of tea.

NetGalley/ June 2nd, 2020 by St. Martin's Griffin

PARIS NEVER LEAVES YOU by Ellen Feldman is a compelling story of love and survival during and after World War II. It has a dual timeline, alternating between 1944 in occupied France and 1954 in New York City. Charlotte Foret is a bookseller in Paris in the 1940s. She is just trying to survive the German occupation and will do anything to keep her baby daughter, Vivienne alive and safe in the face of the unthinkable deprivation and danger that surround them. A German officer visits the bookstore frequently, often providing some assistance to Charlotte and her child. In the 1950s, Charlotte and Vivi have safely made their way to a new life in New York, but as she gets older, Vivi wants to know more about her family history. Charlotte must confront the choices she made and the moral struggles she faced during the war if she is ever going to open up to her daughter about the past. I enjoyed the unique perspective of this wartime story with its exploration of the shame and guilt that are the consequence of the heart-wrenching decisions made to save your child. PARIS NEVER LEAVES YOU is an engaging and thought-provoking read. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read an early copy.

Another survivor of WWII France book, but this one has an interesting twist. The tale of a woman and her daughter who survived in occupied Paris to Immigrate to the US to begin a new life. The story moves between the two time periods slowly revealing the past and its effect on the present. The mother daughter relationship was nicely done. I did like the twist that ok it out of what I have to think of as the usual survivor story..

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for the chance to read and review this book. This is an unforgettable book about Charlotte and her daughter Vivi set during WWII. The story alternates between wartime Paris and 1950's New York. This is the story of how Charlotte survived the war and took care of her young daughter. It is a story that just got better and better the more I read. It was very well written with lots of details that made me feel like I was there. Highly recommend!

Hitler Made Me a Jew

This is the story of a woman living in torment of her past and past choices. When she is questioned about her past and her origins by her teenage daughter she finally must face up to the choices she made during an impossible time in history during 1940's Paris in the midst of the German Occupation. It is a story of a WWII romance but very different and moving to a new romance in 1950's New York.

Charlotte is working in a bookshop in Paris in 1940 Paris. The breaking of WWII in Paris sends her husband to the front and he is killed in Battle. As she is in the hospital having their first child she hears the boots of the German army in the streets. This is the story of how she survived with her baby Vivi. The ways in which she survived and the guilt and secrets that she kept buried for years from everyone.

When the War end Charlotte's and Vivi's lives are saved by pretending they are Jewish and being put in the concentration camp which is liberated four days later. The liberators think she is Jewish and they immigrate her to New York where a friend of her father's is a publisher at a publishing company . He gives her a job and rents her an apartment.

She is content in her new identity and job until her daughter begins to ask questions about what it means to be a Jewish person and about her deceased father. She is slowly falling in love with the publisher who is Jewish and thinks she is as well. The past sins and secrets must come out in the open and be faced by Charlotte.

The story is about her life and survival, about her relationship with herself and her daughter. It is a bit of a different story. It is a very good story. I read it all day and late into the night because I didn't want to put it down. It is exciting, romantic and tragic all at the same time. I definitely recommend this book.

Thanks to Ellen Feldman, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of the book in return for an honest review.

Paris Never Leaves You is the latest story by Ellen Feldman. Although Paris Never Leaves you is a work of fiction it reads more like a true story. Charlotte, the main character, is so "lifelike" it's difficult to believe she is a fiction of the author's mind. I want to thank Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for an early copy to review.

A story of an ordinary young woman's survival in occupied France during WWII and its lifelong effect on her.