Lessons in French

It’s 1989, the Berlin Wall is about to come down, and Kate has just graduated from Yale. She is anxious to make her mark, yet has no idea how to pursue life as a fledging painter. So when she receives a surprising job offer to work as the assistant to Lydia Schell, a famous American photographer in Paris, she immediately accepts. It’s a chance not only to be at the center of it all, but also to return to the city for the first time since she was a lonely nine-year-old girl sent to live with cousins while her father was dying of cancer.

Kate’s accent may be perfect, but she arrives at the Schell household in the fashionable Sixth Arrondissement both dazzled and wildly impressionable. She finds herself surrounded by a cast of characters, including the bright, pretentious Schells, Kate’s flamboyant cousin, a fellow Yalie who seems to have it all figured out, and a band of independently wealthy young men with royal lineage. And as she tries to fit into Lydia’s glamorous and complicated family, Kate forgets that she has one of her own.

Lessons in French is at once a love letter to Paris and the story of a young woman defining herself, and finding her moral compass, in the tall shadow of a powerful boss.