The Paris Seamstress

AudioBook Review: Stars: Overall: 5 Narration: 4 Story: 5 Told from two points of view three-quarters of a century apart, this book mixes historic fiction with discoveries of long-held family secrets, the influence of family, experience and questions resonate through the pages. Estella has only ever known her mother’s love, raised in Paris and spending her time learning fashion, construction and the joys of being young and carefree in Paris. Until the German occupation, and her realization that the Paris she once knew is changing for the worse, pitting neighbor and friend against one another, closing shops and putting everyone on edge. When she follows her mother on one of her much-extended forays into the night, she is quickly thrown into a world she didn’t know existed: the resistance operatives, a devastatingly handsome man, a dead friend and her ‘American’ papers. Placed on one of the last ‘evacuation’ ships out of France that will carry American ex-pats out of the Nazi dangers, she’s not sure if or when she’ll ever see her mother again, or get answers to the many questions she now has. Fabienne is reeling from the death of her father, and visiting her ill grandmother, Estella, before heading back to Australia to start her new position as fashion curator for a museum. This journey, like so many others, has her grandmother working to convince her to take over Stella Designs, the fashion house started in the 1940’s in New York, bringing a whole new ‘view’ of fashionable to the American public. Doubting her own talent, and still unsettled by both her father’s death and her own relationship ending, she’s convinced that running Stella Designs is not for her. Until a series of questions pop up: stories that her grandmother could relay and share, until she suffers a fatal stroke. Left with a box that contains some letters, a book as well as her grandmother’s extensive property holdings, including a house in Paris, the business and more questions. There is not really a way to describe the compelling nature of these stories and characters: from the descriptions and atmosphere that come alive in Paris of the day: from the changes to the near-desperate grasping to moments that will allow the horrors of the occupation and war to diminish, if only for a moment. To Estella’s startling discovery of her own father and creation story, her mother’s work as an operative for the Resistance and her determination that Estella should leave the only city she’d ever known to have a chance at her dreams and a good life. From discovering Lena and the juggle between attraction and self-preservation where Alex is concerned, the horror at the past her mother endured and her own struggles as a new entrant into the New York fashion world, one that believes Parisian fashion, even the outdated, copied and badly reproduced styles are the only way. To Fabienne as she unravels the stories of her Grandmother’s past while trying to find her own road to travel. A chance encounter in Paris with Will and his sister Melissa that will bring her a world of hurt and hope, understanding the three witches on her grandmother’s pendant, finding her design chops along with her own courage to move forward and take on her dreams, in the fashion world and in love. Each moment of self-doubt, fear, struggle and even the determination to move on and forward as both Estella and Fabienne grow and build worlds that invite us in to experience and enjoy them – tastes, smells, colors and textures all combine in ways that are unique and palpable – each new revelation adds another layer of understanding of choices, challenges and above all, demanding attention as the story takes you in directions unexpected.

Why, when you review, is it longer than the book? So annoying and off-putting! Yet again, Gaele??

So good. I couldn't wait for each chapter. Beautiful ending.