“The only place where you can regain lost paradises is in yourself.”

The Paris Hours is a literary and historical fiction novel set over the course of 24 hours that follows multiple characters around the city of Paris as they seek something that has been lost. Oh, but it is so much more than that--

This book feels like velvet, like a soft velvet blanket that was shaped perfectly for me, one in which I happily passed into a dream-like state for hours. It is no surprise to me that I loved this book, as I knew before I read it that it is exactly the type of book I adore. To be precise, it is:
1. A literary fiction novel (a slow-burn, set over the course of 24 hours)
2. A historical fiction novel (set in a post WWI France)
3. Set in Paris! (Need I say more?)

On reading this book, I also discovered that it is:
1. A story of the literary and artistic expatriates (Hemingway makes multiple, boisterous appearances)
2. Written in melodic, lyrical prose (“Music coursed through her, a joyous river. It illuminated her from within, filling her with the light of a thousand suns.”)
3. An intelligent remark on the power of art (and its subjectivity).

Who I would not recommend this book to:
1. People who don’t like literary fiction
2. People who get confused by stories with multiple characters and multiple timelines (we do get lots of flashbacks)

Overall, if you want to bathe yourself in a lucious, velvetine story of love and longing, you should read this book.

Much thanks of course to FlatIron Books for providing me early access to this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I will be discussing this book in-depth on my BookTube channel Perks of a Bookflower in a video titled “My Best Reads of 2020 So Far” that will be out on May 16th.
My channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAa3DZnHK3iMF_fQzLl4ALA

The focus in The Paris Hours is on ordinary people, with tangentially mentioned famous figures of 1927 Paris. All four characters come to the same place towards the end of the novel - at Le Chat Blac. Through flashbacks we learn each character's life story; sad stories, but beautiful in their ordinary.

The novel started slowly, especially until I got used to each character and their history. For me, the rhythm started to pick up once I hit the 20% mark. It seems a lot of grace to give to a book, but it was worth it. The writing reads naturally and there were some parts that caught my attention and I went back to reread them. At times the language sounds very poetic and lyrical, but it doesn't come across as (too) forced.

There is a plethora of charactes and it might be a lot to keep tabs on, especially until you figure out who's who and what's the point of each one being mentioned. I personally needed to keep a list of them all. Looking back, I can see how all of them were necessary to make the story credible.

Each chapter ends with a cliff-hanger and each one focuses on a different character. It makes you want to keep reading to learn more about them. Every chapter is crucial in order to get the whole picture. As the novel progresses you're given more clues. It's like a puzzle whose pieces are handed to you a few at a time - sometimes you can fit them in right away, other times you have to wait for the next hand of pieces to see how and where they can be used.

Each storyline is tender in its way, but Souren's affected me the most. Despite being so tragic, it's fitting the direction his story took. It also added another layer of knowledge to what I know about the Armenian war, which is a too little talked about event, in my opinion. I first learned about this conflict by watching The Ottoman Lieutenant (which I know is not the most historical film...)

The Paris Hours reminded me of the film Midnight in Pairs. I was pleasantly surprised of this book; it shows a different perspective of the '20s in Paris. For historical fiction fans, especially of novels set in Paris or between the two World Wars this could be a good choice.

Searching......

Paris, France 1927, four people, each with secrets search for something lost. Camille the maid, Souren, Armenian refugee turned puppeteer, Guillaume, the artist, and Jean-Paul the journalist.

The stories are told in turns a little of each character, than it goes back and tells a little more of each character. They all have much to lose and something they need to find. The war and life has been hard on all four. It is a story of humanity, of ordinary people, of hurt and fear and pasts which never left them. They cannot move into the future because they are haunted by their past.

As their stories play out each in a different part of the city of Paris you will enjoy their stories as survivors and as common ordinary people with wants, needs, secrets and dreams. One person's loss is another person's secret. Somehow all four of them come together at the end of the book.

It is well worth reading. It is a little difficult to keep the different parts straight, especially at the beginning of the book. It starts out slow but keep reading because it is worth it to read to the end.

Thanks to Alex George, Flatiron Books, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy for an honest review.

Set in post-WWI Paris, four ordinary people begin an ordinary day in 1927. They each carry within themselves a secret, a wound, a fear or a heartbreak that they must confront.

Told in alternating timelines, we learn the history of each of these realistic characters and how everything they have experienced in the past will lead them to their answer. The author cleverly weaves the different stories into one and leaves you gasping at the end.

One of the best books I've read this year.

This book has great writing, but I did not like that every chapter was a different, though recurring, character. Too many to deal with and to keep the story line straight. It would have been better if they would have been a collection of related short stories.

The year is 1927, the place is Paris, France, and over the course of 24 hours, the reader will be pulled into the interweaving web of four main characters: Camille, who used to be the housekeeper for famous writer Marcel Proust, and who now is guarding a secret that could destroy her family; Guillaume, a painter whose debt is going to mean the death of him -- literally; Jean-Paul, a journalist and injured war vet, who has been searching the city for something he lost years ago; and Souren, an Armenian refugee who does puppet shows for children in the park, although these shows reflect his dark and harrowing past rather than children's fairy tales.

While the main narrative takes place in a single day, George also dips us into each character's past, revealing parts of their stories that have brought them to this climactic day. This story device is one that seems to be appearing in lots of novels lately, but I just can't get enough of it. I love multiple timelines -- it is such a good way of building suspense, letting the reader uncover bits of a character's history and nature that have shaped them. It gives us hints, things to look for, mysteries to unwind. I see this as a smart literary technique and find it so much more appealing than a traditional chronological narrative.

I also love the overlapping-tales-of-strangers device. Each of our four main characters are from such different walks of life, and yet, in the final scene, their stories all intersect. It did take me a while to establish each of the four characters in my mind. At the beginning, I often found myself questioning which character was which, but once you get into the meat of their stories (and have some of that history built by the flashbacks), each of the character arcs takes on such an intensity, you feel so deeply for them. (I also think this is partially due to my relative newness to eBook format. If I was reading this in print, and could have easily flipped back a few chapters to recenter myself, I don't think this would have been a problem at all.) And -- although the story is sprinkled with lots of famous historical figures (after all, we are in Paris in the 1920s) like Proust, Hemingway, Josephine Baker, and Gertrude Stein -- they don't distract from our main cast. I found myself not really caring about them, to be honest, as my heart was focused on our central four.

George's writing is gorgeous as well. As I was flipping back through the passages I highlighted, I was surprised at how relevant these words felt to what we're going through today. And that's not to say I am surprised that a modern author can make the 1920s relevant -- that's what authors writing historical fiction are supposed to do. I'm talking today. In this pandemic life we're living in. George finished this book well before COVID-19 was upon us, and yet, his words find such meaning for me as I'm here trapped in my home looking for hope:

"This is what war does, mon ami. The whole world is holding its breath, waiting for life to begin again."

If that doesn't describe what's happening right now, I don't know what does.

He also offers me some suggestion for how to re-frame my perspective for life in quarantine. When describing a stranger who plays piano in the apartment below him each day, he writes: 

"Souren wonders how the arc of the man's own days is changed by creating such beauty each morning."

What beauty can I add to my mornings that will center me, provide me solace, ground me in the new day? My mornings typically begin with a crying baby waking me up, which is not the most relaxing way to start day 87 of quarantine. I feel determined to find some source of beauty to incorporate into that morning routine that will change my arc. And finally, as the priest talking to a near-hopeless Guillaume says,

"I believe God wants us to be happy. ... I don't believe that God put us on this earth so we could be miserable. We only get so many chances at happiness. I think we should take every single one of them."

While I don't quite agree with the priest that we only have so many chances at happiness, I do love the idea of taking advantage of the opportunities for happiness presented to us. I was particularly good in my angsty teenage years at actively denying those opportunities -- if I was feeling crabby, there was nothing that would bring me out of it, and I was pretty resentful of anything that tried. Here in quarantine life, I think it's so easy to get trapped in that mindset again. How can we smile when I don't know when my son will see his grandparents again? How can we laugh when when so many are dying in hospitals without family to comfort them? How can we find joy when it seems like our country's leadership is bound and determined to stir up hate and deny science? Ugh, even writing that out I can feel the clouds rolling in. But then again, that's the point, right? The things these characters go through are devastating and violent and life-altering. And yet, they're still here. We're still here.

So let me read that quote again: "We only get so many chances at happiness. I think we should take every single one of them."

Thank you, Alex George. I'm certainly going to try. 4.5 stars

I will be posting this review on my blog shecantstopreading.wordpress.com on May 2, as part of the publisher's blog tour. I will update this with a link to the review at that time.

My most recent Book of the Month pick, The Paris Hours, was a delightful read. I get excited any time I find a book having anything to do with France or Paris, fiction or non, and even more excited when the book description appeals to me. This book follows four different people and I admit to making a few notes on my phone to keep main details straight while I was getting to know them. I love that it is about four ordinary people (a puppeteer, a journalist, the former maid to Marcel Proust, and a painter) who interact with popular names that were in Paris in the 1920's. I love that this book has *a painting* in it; I love it when stories have intriguing and importing paintings (mine does! What exists of it anyway.) And I love that this book is about people growing and learning and it feels like it means something. It changes you a little bit when you read it. This is the kind of book I want to write and I can't think of any higher compliment.

Four stories, four perspectives, Paris and celebrities?

Four alternating storylines introduce a myriad of characters. We have Souren- an Armenian puppeteer, Jean-Paul a journalist missing his daughter, Guillaume - a painter that owes a debt, and Camille- housekeeper to Marcel Proust.

I wanted to fall in love with this story and these characters so much. I really grasped to let them draw me in emotionally. I found the writing compelling and the stories were strong. There were just way too many characters. I easily got confused and it always took a few sentences of a new section for me to orient myself as to whose story I was in. Then the addition of Hemingway, Stein, Proust and Josephine Baker was just too much. I struggled to connect but the threads of the main voice came through and for that I appreciated this read.

A beautiful AND non-traditional war story told over the course of just 24 hours. I loved all four main characters and how wonderfully their stories came together. I thought I was worn out of this genre, but The Paris Hours changed my mind!

Other than the fact that it would have been easier to keep track of the four points of view in a paper copy, I enjoyed the story. Once I figured out the plot, I couldn't put it down. The characters were well developed and I liked the ending.

I knew going into this book that it was multiple view points, but it was very hard for me to follow. I think it had to do with the format (reading it on my kindle). I think if I had read this paperback I would of been able to enjoy the story more.

Told through a vast array of points of view (maybe too many) and in short chapters. In Paris in one day, these people will go through some interesting circumstances that will eventually lead them to all interact in one location and the outcome after the culmination is interesting.

This book was good, but not great for me. Out of all of the characters there were only three that I really enjoyed reading about and the rest were just ok for me. I felt as though with the short chapters just as I was getting into one character's story, the chapter would end and it would hop to another. I wanted longer chapters and fewer characters to follow. I think with these two changes I would have loved this one so much more.

The two characters that stuck out the most to me were Camille Clermont who ends up being a part of Marcel Proust's life in his later years. I loved hearing through her eyes the behind the scenes of a writer's life and how she supported him. The other character that stood out to me was Souren. To hear his story of his life and leaving of his home country of Armenia was really intriguing to me. I haven't read anything about the country of Armenia and the history that happened in that country and after reading the bit that was in this book, I want to search and read more.

One of the things that kept me reading was the time and place. I don't read a ton of books set in between the two World Wars and Paris is always a fun city for a setting. I thought it was unique to set the story in between the wars and to read about the unrest of the city as they are trying to settle from World War I.

I liked this book, it was good, but not one that I would suggest to all of my friends. I would suggest this book to the right reader, one who likes a large cast of characters and likes to skip around and loves to see how it will all come together!

Sigh. I adored this novel that takes place in 1927 Paris. Four delightful characters living in Paris are followed during a single day culminating in one of the most wonderful endings I’ve read in a long while. If you liked 2am at the Cat’s Pajamas, this is a book for you. I adored the author’s last novel, Setting Free the Kites and this one was fabulous as well.

A book that combines real people and imagined characters is always interesting to read. I spent a lot of time researching characters to find who was real and who was made up. Paris in the early part of the century is also a character. The story itself is a collage of stories that are interrelated. every character is dealing with a secret or a hardshio. There is a lot to be learned from their stories. Until I was well into the book, I sometimes had a hard time keeping the characters straight.

Set in Paris in 1927, the City of Lights, vibrates with artists of all kinds. However, the story gives the center stage to four ordinary people, who rub elbows with famous artists. By meeting another person, they learn something about themselves. And sometimes what one person needs is simply kindness.

Armenian refugee, Souren Balakian, escapes brutality of his native country imposed by invading Turks. “Being forced from their homes and driven eastwards, into the Syrian desert, to die.” He makes his way to Europe, remembering his mother’s words, “there were more than three hundred types of cheese made in France.” And he intended to eat every one of them. When he understands what makes him safe, being invisible, he takes his life in that direction by creating puppets and performing at the Luxembourg Gardens, beneath the chestnut trees where he waits for children to come. Escaping his brutal past and through an encounter with another person, he realizes what he’s been craving the most is human kindness.

Guillaume Blanc escapes a small French country place and dreams of joining the ranks of the famous Parisian artists. He is struggling for now, but his fate might be changing today with a new patron, American novelist and art collector Gertrude Stein. She is to come and view his collection.

Jean-Paul Maillard, a journalist, dreams of America. “The first Americans he met were soldiers.” When he thinks of America, he thinks of hope. He likes to observe the world, rather than be observed. He likes telling other people’s stories, rather than revealing his own, which also explains why he is a journalist. When he interviews Josephine Baker, American-born French entertainer, she reveals how different her life was in America and that’s why she made France her home. He realizes that her celebrity is a mask and now he needs to face his.

Camille Clermont, once the maid for Marcel Proust, now she visits his grave with her daughter every week. While working for Proust, she gets surprised when he asks her about her childhood. How a man of such status who spends evenings with duchesses wearing tiaras could be interested in a simple country girl? He tells her why and he also tells her, “The only place where you can regain lost paradise is in yourself.” What he gives her is her independence.

Each of the characters tries to escape the past, at least some aspect of it, but by escaping it they can’t free themselves from what haunts them. They need to face it. By encountering another person, it helps them learn something about themselves. Some see the mirror image of their experience; some see how little it takes to make another person happy. Through their life journeys we get a glimpse at their life lessons, which may even mirror some of ours. This is more than just a touching read. It has a deeper meaning. It’s up to you if you want to tap into it and learn a deeper message.

The events happen over one day, but the stories of protagonists alternate between the present day and their pasts, revealing deeply touching stories, taking a reader on a very engaging journey and leaving with a lingering effect.

Masterfully written and evoking human emotions, this story weaves human natures and touches upon many depths of not only those characters but also ours. Thus, creating the deep connection with the story.

Another gorgeous book by this so so talented author. 1927; Paris four characters four points a view literary fiction at its best involving page turning,Highly recommend.#netgalley#the parishours

Once I picked up The Paris Hours I could not put it down. This book is a delightful retreat to Paris in 1927 where you meet beautiful characters whose lives unknowingly intersect. It's a story about people who make choices in life which ultimately is for their survival and livelihood. It’s about how your past choices will affect the outcome of your current circumstances. You can find yourself relating to one of these characters. A struggling artist who lives on regret, a woman who has hidden a dark secret, a man struggling with the loss of his family, an immigrant’s desire for kinship. They aren’t just characters in a book but people you find an intimate connection.
Moreover, the incredible setting of 1920’s Paris captures the upbeat entertainment of writers, singers, and musicians. Alex George writes about notable historical figures that influenced Parisian society during that time. The renaissance of culture and artistry mixed together with the ordinary lives of our characters is beautifully written.
Alex George gives you beautiful details of bustling Paris streets. The coffee shops,the cemetery, bakeries, bookstores, the gardens and the people sitting upon a bench in the park are captured beautifully on every page.
Overall, this is a captivating story that will leave a very impressionable mark on your life. It’s a story that nicks at your heart and leaves you asking but what happens next?

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC. This book was beautifully written. I did find it a little bit difficult to keep the characters and their stories straight in the beginning of the book because it switches perspectives quite quickly. Once I had all of the different narratives down, I enjoyed the book. I also loved the ending. It isn’t often an author can leave the reader hanging like that and still leave the story feeling complete.

I can see why this was a book of the month pick!! What an excellent story. I felt like I was actually in Paris. This is an example of where the timeline could have been a disaster but it worked out beautifully. I loved the writing, the character, and the entire story.

Set in 1920s Paris, this novel is one for the sense with references to the sights, sounds, and haunts of notable creative Parisians and American expats. It took nearly to the end of the novel for the stories of each of the characters to mesh together into a singular narrative and for that reason I rated this book 4/5; I didn't identify with or connect with any of the characters, so for most of the narrative I felt like a casual observer. It is well written, but is best suited for the patient reader due to the slow pace, numerous characters, and nonlinear narrative structure.

#NetGalley and the publisher provided me with a galley copy in exchange for an honest review.