Sarah's parents have recently died and her husband is divorcing her. She decides to embark on a trip to Paris to investigate the mystery behind her ancester Louisa's death.
From A Paris Balcony is the third book in Ella Carey's series which began with Paris Time Capsule and The House By The Lake. All three books are linked by the Parisian courtesan Marthe de Florian and her apartment.
This is a dual timeline book so we see Sarah in the present and Louisa in the past. Both women are likeable and their plotlines are engaging especially are they are connected.
Sarah surprises her friends by being spontaneous and travelling to Paris. There is a romantic spark between Sarah and Laurent as they share the de Florian apartment as she battles with her self esteem.
Louisa in the 1890s is a brilliant character. Determined to challenge society's limits on women, she wants to support the Rights For Women movement. She meets the charming Henry Duval and he seems to share her values but once they marry she discovers his selfishness.
There is plenty of emotion in From A Paris Balcony. As my degree included Women's Studies, I loved the feminism angle and felt that I understood Louisa's angst at being constrained by an unfair society. I enjoyed the mystery of Louisa's life and death which keeps the plot moving along as Sarah makes discoveries and we also see Louisa's own perspective.

As the nights begin to draw in and with all the horrible things going on in the world right now, Ella Carey’s dual narrative tales of secrets and passions are providing me with some much needed escapism and From A Paris Balcony is another intriguing, evocative and captivating read I couldn’t bear to put down.

In 1895, all of Louisa West’s dreams seem to have finally come true. The Boston beauty had come to England and she has the world at her feet. She is married to a handsome husband, lives in beautiful Ashworth Manor and will one day become a duchess. To the outside world, Louisa is a woman who has everything she could possibly want, but behind closed doors it’s a completely different story. Louisa’s life is a complete shambles and the ink is barely dry on their marriage certificate when her husband deserts her and leaves her alone and facing society’s scorn. Desperate to flee the scandal she has found herself tangled up in, Louisa escapes to Paris, but rather than the second chance she had hoped to find, she finds grief, despair and a terrible tragedy.

Over a century later in 2015, Sarah West has also been having a difficult time lately. In twelve months she had lost both her parents and her marriage. While going through her father’s belongings, she comes across a letter about her mysterious ancestor, Louisa. There have always been whispers and rumours about Louisa and her death by suicide after jumping to her death from a balcony. But the more Sarah reads, the more she wonders whether the truth was far stranger than the fiction which her family has spun for generations. Determined to find out more, Louisa heads off to Paris where she is soon charmed by the beauty of Montmartre and by the sights and scents of the city of lights.

Sarah’s search for the truth will compel her to untangle the sinister secrets of the past and as she edges closer to finding out what really happened to Louisa, she quickly realises that everything she has always known about her family might be a devastating lie. Finding herself in a Parisian apartment that will give her all the answers she has been seeking, Sarah’s entire future is at stake and her life as she has always known it will end up changing forever.

Ella Carey’s From a Paris Balcony is a richly textured, wonderfully nuanced and beautifully evocative page-turner from this master storyteller. Ella Carey never fails to deliver captivating tales that touch the heart and keep the reader turning the pages and From a Paris Balcony is a sweeping, atmospheric and deftly written tale of loyalty, love and loss that will hold readers spellbound.

An enchanting, emotional and haunting dual narrative tale, From a Paris Balcony is another triumph by Ella Carey.

From a Paris Balcony is the third and final volume of a trilogy inspired by Marthe de Florian's famous Paris apartment. As with the previous two novels, Paris Time Capsule and The House by the Lake, it can be enjoyed as a standalone. The story unfolds over two time lines: the present and the Belle Époque, as Sarah West embarks on a quest to learn more about her great-great-aunt Louisa and the manner of her death.

A letter amongst her late father's possessions, dated 1895 and written by Marthe de Florian to Viscount Henry Duval following the suicide of his wife, Louisa, rekindles Sarah's interest in this family tragedy. In the past, when questioned about Louisa and why she was never spoken of, Sarah's father was unable to provide answers, nor the reason why her death was never investigated. Now, Sarah is tempted to find out more.

When Sarah learns that Marthe de Florian's apartment is available to rent, she contacts the owner and explains why she is interested in taking the apartment for the summer. The apartment, however, has already been promised to Laurent Chartier, an artist, but he is willing to share.

Taking a sabbatical from her job at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and hoping that time away will help her recover from her parents' deaths and the breakdown of her marriage, Sarah goes to Paris in search of those elusive answers, but it is in England that she makes a most astounding discovery.

In the late 19th century, Louisa, an American heiress, marries into the aristocracy hoping that marriage will allow her to freely pursue her suffragist ambitions. Instead, she finds that her life is now constrained by even more rules and the authority of a husband whose plans do not include her. A trip to Paris reveals more of her husband's lifestyle and Louisa realises she has made a huge mistake in marrying Henry, especially when she meets his younger brother and sees what her life could have been.

I enjoyed Sarah's quest to uncover what happened to Louisa while finding happiness for herself along the way. Louisa's tale is the more emotional of the two. Her death and the actions by the Duval family to avoid a scandal were poignant and heartless in equal measure. And the revelation regarding Sarah was unexpected, but a great way to end the story.

Once again, Ella Carey has written a captivating story across two timelines involving the apartment of Marthe de Florian. A lovely touch is the reintroduction of characters from the first book, which brings the trilogy full circle.

I now consider myself an Ella Carey fan and I am looking forward to reading more of her novels.

I love how the author has created several characters and stories that connect back to the Paris apartment of the French demimondaine (courtesan), Marthe de Florain. This story too has a past and a present storyline that eventually converge. Present day Sarah visits Paris to find out more about her mysterious ancestor, Lousia who supposedly threw herself from the balcony of the apartment. What she finds will change her and her way of thinking.

Another wonderful book of historical fiction from Carey who never fails to enthrall with her great characters and rich descriptions from another time in history. There's enough romance, intrigue, history to make me read the book through the night and enjoy it immensely.

From A Paris Balcony by Ella Carey is the third book she has written that revolves around an apartment in Paris and it's owner, Marthe De Florian, who left the apartment in 1940 at it was opened up in 2010 exactly as she left it.
This book is again told from two timelines and two women. We have Louisa in the past and Sarah in the present day.Sarah is a museum curator who has lost both parents and her marriage is also over. She discovers a letter from Marthe De Florian to her Great-Great Aunt Louisa's husband dated 1895. This letter raises her curiosity about Louisa and her life. She decides to travel to Paris and attempt to find out, while staying in Marthe's old apartment.I really enjoyed reading about Louisa's life and I felt for Sarah as she attempts to discover clues in Paris about Louisa's life.
Again, a exceptionally well written book. The alternating chapters from the past and present are woven together so well I was, again, captivated with the story. A historical fiction story blended together with a romance, some intrigue and mystery, that kept me turning the pages. I always love an Ella Carey book and this one just finished off the story about women through the ages and how they were connected to the Paris apartment. If you enjoy historical fiction with a twist, this is a book for you.
Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for my copy of the book for me to write this review today.

When we first meet Sarah West it is 2015 and she has lost both of her parents and her marriage over the previous year, leaving her devastated and emotionally brittle. She find a green box at the bottom of her father's wardrobe, which contains just one object - a letter written by famous courtesan Marthe de Florian. In it, Marthe is writing to Henry Duval, advising him to flee Paris following the untimely death of his wife, Louisa West. It has long been said that Louisa had committed suicide by leaping from a balcony in Paris in the midst of a party. When Sarah reads the letter it is clear that there is more to the story, so she decides to travel to Paris to find out what really happened.

Several years before, Marthe's Parisian apartment was opened (which forms part of the story in the first book of this loosely connected trilogy) and is now occasionally available to rent. Sarah decides that she wants to stay in the apartment in the hope that she might find some more clues. The only problem is, the apartment already has a tenant, so if she is going to stay there, she will have to share the space with French artist Laurent. Sarah decides that her need to search for clues is more important than any uncomfortableness relating to sharing the apartment with a complete stranger, especially someone who has a reputation for being a bit temperamental.

In the past story of the dual storyline, Louisa is a young American woman who is sent to England in the 1890s. She seemingly lives the dream in that she catches the eye of the aristocratic heir to an earldom, Henry Duval, and ends up marrying him. But for Louisa, this is not quite a fairytale.

Louisa is a modern, opinionated woman who is taking a keen interest in the fledgling suffragette movement, and believes that she can use her new position to support the movement, but this will be frowned upon by the whole family, with the exception of her husband's younger brother Charlie.

As for Henry, he wants to spend all of his time partying hard in Paris, where he consorts with actresses, prostitutes, and courtesans, and he wants his wife to stay away, away from his world.

Sarah's search for clues takes her to the Duval family estate, Ashworth, where Sarah hopes to find the final clues in Louisa's story, and in her own as well. I did have to read the final explanations a little confusing so I had to read it a couple of times until I got it. Not sure if that was just me or not though.

It was interesting to see how three worlds converge in Louisa's life. She marries into the very structured, aristocratic world where there are rules for every situation, especially if you are a woman. There is the world of the suffragettes, where Louisa and others like Emmeline Pankhurst are fighting for the right of every woman to be able to make their own choices in life, and then there is the Paris world that her husband loves so much, where yes, a woman can, if she's lucky and successful, make a lot of herself, but in the case of the courtesan it is often at the behest of the men that provide the jewels, apartments, favours that fund the lifestyle.

I have enjoyed my time reading this trilogy.

Ella Carey has now become one of my favourite, go-to writers. I have a few books from her back catalogue to read which I look forward to becoming immersed in over the next few months. I had high hopes for From a Paris Balcony after reading the first two books about the apartment in Paris. This book is only loosely linked to the other two via the courtesan who owned the apartment and her connection to an unhappy married couple in 1895. A couple of the characters from Paris Time Capsule put in an appearance. Like the other books featuring the apartment in Paris, I really loved this. The structure is similar with chapters bouncing between 1895 and 2015 as the links between Louse and Sarah are gradually revealed and old secrets and pain and brought into the open. I loved every word of this book. I fell in love with the characters and the setting. This is a remarkable book.

The story that started in Paris Time Capsule and continued in The House on the Lake finishes in From a Paris Balcony. As with the other two books in the trilogy, the author uses a contemporary plot line in conjunction with historical timelines.
This time we follow Sarah, an art curator whose life has been turned upside down. When she finds a mysterious letter that hints at a tragic mystery involving one of her ancestors, she takes the opportunity to go to Paris to see what she can uncover.
In the course of doing so, she rents the apartment that has been central in the trilogy – Marthe’s Belle Epoque living quarters that had been closed up for decades. Of course, there has to be conflict (because nothing is easy in Paris) and it seems as if an artist is already in residence.
It’s no spoiler to say that Laurent and Sarah are meant to be the couple to follow, but in honesty, I didn’t much care for their storyline. As with the other two books, the contemporary sections felt awkward.
The dialogue didn’t flow, there didn’t seem to be a lot of chemistry, and some of the plot points seemed at loose ends. The transitions between the two eras were sometimes abrupt and it almost seemed like the author lost focus for a bit before bringing the plot back to wrap up at the end.
What kept me reading, however, were the historical sections. With Marthe’s story coming to a close, it is now easy to see that this is where the author seemed much more comfortable. I really got a better sense of Marthe’s time and the events that led to the tragedy mentioned in the letter that Sarah found.
I don’t know if it’s the intrigue of the closed-up apartment and period it “lives” in that draws my attention or if the writer was just more comfortable creating a story around an actual event (opposed to fabricating Sarah’s contemporary life).
I can’t speculate on the latter, but it certainly appeared to me that the author liked the past and treated that story line with more care. All in all, it was a good trilogy, and I am glad that I had the opportunity to read it.

Sarah lives in Boston. Her parents have recently died and her husband - the man she thought was her soul mate - has left her for another woman. While cleaning out her parents house she finds a small green chest concealed at the back of her father’s wardrobe. When she opened the chest, there was only one thing inside: a letter, postmarked 1895, Paris. Determined to find out more about the letter and a distant aunt who committed suicide in Paris, she goes to Paris and rents the apartment that originally belonged to Isbelle deFlorian. The more information she uncovers, the more sure she is that her aunt Louisa was murdered and didn't kill herself. She also finds out that Louisa's husband had a great friendship with the courtesan from book one. Sarah and Louisa were both interesting characters and both were looking for love and understanding in their lives. As with the other two books, this one had mystery, romance and lots of historical detail.