What a wonderful book. So well written I had chills reading it. What people went through during the Holocaust.! The people who lived through it didn’t know who to trust. There were some good and heroic people who helped the Jews even I though it cost them the ultimate price. This book will live inside me for a very long time!

In "The Paris Housekeeper" by Renee Ryan, readers are treated to an exquisite blend of romance, intrigue, and a lush Parisian backdrop that comes alive on every page. This is a heartbreaking novel of resilience and friendship. It is a reminder of the strength of women and the bonds that can exist between women that only strengthen in times of trial.

One of the standout strengths of "The Paris Housekeeper" is its well-drawn characters, each with their own distinct personalities and hidden layers. Ryan's meticulous attention to historical detail immerses readers in the sights, sounds, and emotions of the era, creating an atmospheric experience that adds depth to the narrative.

The story of 3 women - one American heiress, a French housekeeper and a young Jew, during the Nazi occupation of Paris.

This was a stunning book . Camille , Rachel and Vivian’s stories were woven together beautifully. It made me keep reading and wanting to know what happened next .

Camille is a French girl who struggles with the impact she has made years ago on her younger sister . Her sister struggles with what we’d most likely label as PTSD. Camille works extra hours and extra jobs at the hotel she works at in order to fund her sisters care . She meets Rachel who is another chambermaid at the hotel . Rachel is different though - she is Jewish. No one likes her or is kind to her :except Camille. Vivian is an American heiress living at the hotel Camille and Rachel work at. She is carefree living the best life she can while missing her deceased husband . All three women’s story changes when the German come to Paris and take over the town and the hotel .
Vivian has to decide whether she will become the mistress of a cruel , harsh Nazi member . Will she become his mistress and help save individual Jews or go home to the United States ?
Camille chooses to become a housekeeper in a Nazi’s home and ultimately saves Rachel’s and her mothers lives.
This story is about how many things are not black and white . Many choices are made that may be different than what they appear. Many impact others with no acknowledgment: no credit .
This story was a beautiful , haunting story. It brought me to tears .
Thank you to Netgalley for a copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

The Paris Housekeeper
Maybe I have read too many books of Paris after the German invasion during World War II, or this novel was just too slow for me.
I was dragging through at least the first two thirds of the book, with not a lot happening, just repeating the three protagonist’s plight. Vivian, the rich American widow living in the Ritz hotel in Paris, and two housekeepers, Jewish Rachel and Camille. Each of their lives are uprooted after the Nazi invasion. The book does pick up towards the end, but overall this was only a three star book for me.
I received a complimentary copy, opinions are my own.

Ebook received for free through NetGalley

A heart wrenching and incredible story that grabbed me from the start. Written really well.

The Paris Housekeeper by Renee Ryan is a page turned historical fiction. It is about the plight of the Jews in Nazi occupied Paris during the second world war. Vivian is a rich American citizen who has stayed in Paris to help get as many Jews, and people the Nazi’s feel are undesirable, out of the country. Camille is a maid at the Ritz where the Nazi’s are living. She is working to support her family, especially her sister who is in a mental facility as a result of witnessing their father commit suicide. Rachel and her family are Jewish.

The story brings together these three women and tells of how Vivian and Camille fight to get Rachael and her mother out of France. They hide them right under the Nazi’s nose. The story is definitely heart stopping at times and keeps you in suspense at others. The writing is excellent and explains how these people were wronged. There were times when you dreaded the outcome but continued because you had to know. I could not put this book down.

I thank Net Galley for giving me the opportunity to read this pre-release. The book will be available for purchase in December 2023.

I’m a professional history nerd and a small facet of my job is talking about American women’s experiences during World War II. I was so excited for the chance to read “The Paris Housekeeper” by Renee Ryan and read about the fictional experiences of three very different women in Paris during the German occupation.

When Germany seized control of Paris in June 1941, not everyone was able to escape. People like Camille Lacroix, employed at the Hôtel Ritz, could not afford to leave behind a job that supports her windowed mother and sisters. Desperate to provide for them, Camille takes up work as a lady’s maid for the hotel guest Vivian Miller.

Vivian is a beautiful and fabulously wealthy American widow…and a Nazi sympathizer. Camille doesn’t trust her, but has no choice but to turn to Vivian for help getting her friend Rachel Berman out of the city. For Vivian has been using her money and connections to obtain forged travel papers for Jewish refugees and agrees to help Rachel.

As Nazi control grows, Rachel and her mother are in increasing danger, motivating Camille to hide the two women in a secret underground bunker right under the nose of a Nazi officer. But the women know that time is running out and Rachel and her mother need to get out before it’s too late.

“The Paris Housekeeper” was a stressful tale of three very different women trying to navigate life in 1940s Paris during the Nazi occupation. The women’s stories intersect at multiple times and their fates become irrevocably entwined as they try to help one of them—a woman of Jewish heritage—escape France with her mother.

Ryan wove an interesting story and utilized real people and events to influence her characters. The character of Camille, who is the housekeeper referenced in the book’s title, is the most fleshed out of the three women we see. She left behind her family and her guilt for a better paying job at the Hôtel Ritz. We see her thoughts are constantly about her family and quickly about Rachel and what she could do to protect them from the Nazis. Camille is faced with many difficult and dangerous decisions but puts her fear aside to do what she thinks is right.

Rachel Berman is the most interesting character of the book. She goes through the most in the book, seeing the men in her neighborhood arrested and sent away shortly after the occupation began and increasingly fearing for her mother and herself. Ryan portrayed Rachel as very angry through the book, which I thought was a great choice because it gave her more agency. She was mad at her family for not seeing the writing on the wall when the German Army was approaching France, furious that they wouldn’t leave their home but powerless to do anything. She was upset about the deteriorating conditions at work and the poor treatment by her coworkers and neighbors. She was also angry at Camille, because Rachel needed to rely on her help to escape. And most of all, Rachel was angry that there was nothing she could do herself. A lot of fictional stories that incorporate Jewish people during World War II paint them as resigned and fearful, but they were not one-dimensional and should not be portrayed as such.

Arguably the least interesting character was Vivian Miller. She became the mistress of a Nazi officer in order to continue her work of gathering forged travel documents for Jewish refugees and sometimes expressed her hatred of him and her actions and sometimes seemed complacent. While this could have been a fascinating decision on Ryan’s part, having Vivian struggle with her morals or even begin to suffer from a sort of Stockholm Syndrome, it comes across instead that the author was too wishy-washy with the character and didn’t fully develop her character.

In all, “The Paris Housekeeper” was a well written fictional story inspired by true events. It was tense and stressful—as it should be given the topic—but also filled with quiet, heartfelt moments. Ryan balanced the multiple POVs of the three female leads well and developed several interesting characters.

A note on a historical inaccuracy that I’m probably the only person to be bothered by: Vivian makes a few comments about her experiences in World War I with the Red Cross. She makes a point to specify that she was a “combat nurse,” but those did not exist in either World War I or World War II. The War Department refused to allow women to be classified as combatants of any kind during either war. I suppose it’s possible she served as a “combat nurse” with another country’s Red Cross, but that wasn’t really a term used by any nation as far as I’m aware. It is also clearly established that she’s an American, so this further seems unlikely. Vivian’s experiences would still read the same if she referred to herself as a nurse and it would be historically correct.

This story of Paris occupied by the Nazis is told by three women in very different circumstances.

-Vivian is a glamorous American widow who lives at the Hotel Ritz. She continues her lavish lifestyle and doesn't seem to be affected by the German invasion until she is moved from her luxurious suite to a smaller room so that a German officer can live in her suite. She begins an affair with the German officer and to the outside world, it appears that she is a German sympathizer. She is hiding the fact that she's using her money to work with forgers to get fake identification papers to help Jewish people escape from France.
-Camille is a chambermaid at the Ritz. She needs to keep her job to send money home to help her emotionally disturbed sister because she knows what the Germans do with people with mental issues. Vivian has taken a liking to her and helps her make extra money by requesting her for help with her hair and wardrobe. Camille is suspicious of Vivian but turns to her for help in trying to get a Jewish chambermaid out of France.
-Rachel is Jewish and is treated poorly at her job because everyone knows. She is aware that she needs to get her family out of Paris and when her father and brother are taken in a round-up, she knows that she must act soon to save her mother and herself. Her friend Camille enlists help from Vivian but getting papers has become more difficult now that the Germans are being more ruthless.


Camille sets up a daring escape plan to help her friend by hiding her in the home of the German officer who is having the affair with Vivian who has been trying to help - but has she really? The last part of the book is very suspenseful and scary as the reader is unsure who will live and who will die and if the escape plan will work,

This is a well written and well researched novel about the lives of three very different women in Paris during the war. It's a story of bravery and friendship and freedom and I highly recommend it.

This is actually a story of three women facing difficulties in World War II, and the friendship that the three of them forged through the hardest of times. Vivian was a resident of the Ritz Hotel in Paris until the Germans took it over. Rachel and Camille were housekeepers in the hotel. Vivian often asked for Camille's assistance and tipped well. As the Germans infiltrated Paris, Rachel got singled out as the Jew on the staff and eventually had to go into hiding because the Jews were going to be rounded up and sent to a death camp.
A German officer who has moved into the suite where Vivian once resided and then is promoted and given a house closer to his work. He takes Vivian as his mistress/hostess and Vivian recommends Camille to be his housekeeper at three times her normal wages.

Camille finds a tunnel under the house where there is a couple of cots set up and she hides Rachel and her mother until new papers can be acquired for them to escape France and to move into Spain. It all comes to a head when the German officer finds the forged papers and realizes that the two Jewish women had been hiding in his house for months.

I didn't find this book as compelling as the other book by Renee Ryan that I have read. The plot moved very slowly and the characters weren't as engaging. Many of the characters seemed two dimensional to me and lacked depth. Those who like World War II fiction may like this and this may have been just the mood I was in when I read the book. So I will give it three stars.

Harlequin Romance provided the copy I read for this review. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

The Paris Housekeeper
By Renee Ryan
Publisher: Harlequin Publishers
Series: None
Rated:3
Obtain: Borrow
Back of the Book: “Paris, 1940, German tanks rumble through the streets of Paris, forcing frightened citizens to flee. But not everyone has the luxury to leave. Camille Lacroix, a chambermaid at the world-famous Hôtel Ritz, must stay to support her family back home in Brittany. Desperate to earn money, Camille also acts as a lady’s maid for longtime guest Vivian Miller, a glamorous American widow—and a Nazi sympathizer.
Despite her distrust of the woman, Camille turns to Vivian when her friend and fellow hotel maid Rachel Berman needs help getting out of Paris. It’s then that Camille discovers that Vivian is not what she seems… The American has been using her wealth and connections to secretly obtain travel papers for Jewish refugees.
While hiding Rachel in an underground bunker under a Nazi’s nose, a daring escape plan is hatched. But as the net grows tighter, and the Germans more ruthless, Camille’s courage will be tested to the extreme…”

Impressions (Spoilers): Although this book was everything that the description says it is I struggled with parts in the characters stories. For example, in her words, Vivian was sacrificing so much to be an aid to the resistance however she doesn’t seem to be doing anything but financing false papers. She never really stepped out for secret meetings or risky plots. She seemed to be quite self-absorbed for being portrayed as she was. I would call her sympathetic, but the sacrifice she made seemed more for her own skin then anyone else’s. I also felt that Rachel and her family would have been exposed sooner as they were known to be Jewish to many. It was strange per the timeline how long she was able to work and move about. Camille’s sister is “safe” but there is also vagueness in how she was kept safe, and the eventual romance could have been more developed. All in all it was an exciting read but had a few holes that I struggled with. I also found the ending to be sad because the characters were without faith in God but clung to a false hope of being enough. Speaking of death, I didn’t like how the main characters came together at the end without acknowledging Vivians role in their journey, allowing her to take such criticism. It was odd considering she saved them.

I received an ARC of this book via the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review shared here.

The Paris Housekeeper is a well written historical romance. Good plot and character development. I recommend this book. I received an advance ebook from the publisher and Netgalley. This is my unbiased review.

The Paris Housekeeper by Renee Ryan is a dark look into the world of the Nazi's and their control over everyone during World War II. The story is told from three point of views. A Jewish girl, a French girl, and a wealthy American. The story starts in the Ritz Hotel in Paris, France. Ryan did not shy away from the abuse and horror that was given and taken by the American. The plot is disturbing, horrific, yet informative of the realities of World War II. Definitely a plot that captured my attention and did not let go. It was different and unique from all the World War II stories that I have read. Each of the heroines were brave and fought against the injustice done to them. Each of them put their own comfort on the lines to save someone else. A concept that is rarely heard of anymore. Everytime I read stories that show the horror that people did to others during this time period, it always makes me cringe and wonder what I would do. With the way that the American economy is going, I might find out sooner than later. Sadly to admit. Overall, The Paris Housekeeper by Renee Ryan is an informative tale of horror and bravery during World War II Paris, France. I really enjoyed this novel.

I received a complimentary copy of The Paris Housekeeper by Renee Ryan from Love Inspired Publishing, but the opinions stated are all my own.

As a fan of Renee Ryan, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her latest novel, The Paris Housekeeper! This captivating story will keep you on the edge of your seat from cover to cover! Told from three very different perspectives, you will be swept away by the bravery and resilience of these women.

Rachel, Camille and Vivian are very different women with three very different lives that will be turned upside down when the Germans invade Paris in the early days of WWII. With the Hotel Ritz as the main backdrop, Renee eloquently intertwines their lives as they fight to survive and save those in need and those they love. Rachel is a Jewish girl working at the hotel. Her treatment at the hands of her coworkers go from bad to worse when the Germans take over the hotel. Then her father and brother are taken and she realizes that time is running out to escape. Camille is beautiful French girl who wants nothing more than to keep her sister safe. Her sister has been suffering since witnessing a traumatic event and Camille is very aware of what the Nazis have in store for the mentally ill in Germany and refuses to let that happen to her sister. And finally there’s Vivian, an American widow who has taken up residence in the Hotel Ritz but also secretly works with forgers to get identity papers for Jewish citizens trying to leave France. When Rachel and her mother are in danger of being arrested. Camille and Vivian work together to get them to safety, right under the nose of the very Nazi in charge of Jewish deportation.

While a fictional story, the different perspectives featured in book shed light on the plight of the French under German occupation. Women definitely proved their strength and resiliency during the war. We also learn that not everything is as it seems and sometimes we have to trust our friends even when their actions give us every reason not to!

Thank you so much to NetGalley, St Martins Press and Renee Ryan for early access to this can’t miss story

The Paris Housekeeper had me on the edge of my seat! You could feel the tension and fear as you read this story. Very well written and I will definitely recommend this book to others. I loved how the characters were built up and you feel emotion and fear as you read this story.

The Paris Housekeeper kept me on the edge of my chair throughout the whole story. I knew what was coming in a lot of places, but it was written so well that I fell into the story.

Camille and Rachel work at the Ritz in Paris when it falls under Nazi occupation. As a Jewish person, Rachel is in immediate peril and Rachel gets help from American heiress Vivian to hide Rachel and her mom inside a Nazi's home. Camille, meanwhile, struggles with helping her own family in the French countryside.

I was crying at the end and didn't want the story to be over.

The author notesbat the end have set me down a rabbit hole looking for more information about the story's inspiration.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

An unsettling but wonderful book based in WWII Paris. Multiple point of views of 3 very different women, each voice essential to this story. A story of bravery & strong females surviving when things are so bleak & dreadful. I could not put it down. Many heartbreaking moments throughout, but the end was quite touching and left tears in my eyes. I absolutely loved this.

An excellent novel set in WWII Paris about two courageous women and their fight to save lives. I could not put it down!