The Croquembouche Conspiracy: A Wartime Tale of Pastry, Resistance, and Buried Secrets

Paris, 1940. As German forces close in on the city, gifted pastry chef Camille refuses to abandon the Hotel Lutetia or the craft that has shaped her life. Baking offers comfort amid fear, but occupation soon transforms familiar streets and elegant kitchens into places of danger, secrecy, and impossible choices. By 1943, Camille is preparing her most spectacular creation: a towering croquembouche intended for powerful German intelligence officers—and made with a deadly purpose.

San Francisco, 1984. Thirteen-year-old Wren is furious at being sent across the country while her parents struggle to save their marriage. Anxious about nuclear war and determined to be taken seriously, she arrives for a summer with the grandmother she barely knows. Memories of extraordinary cakes hint at warmth beneath old family wounds, yet the past surrounding her grandmother is far more complicated than Wren realizes.

Moving between occupied Paris and 1980s San Francisco, The Croquembouche Conspiracy blends wartime suspense, family mystery, and the sensory pleasures of French baking. It is a story of courage expressed through craft, secrets carried across generations, and the unexpected ways food can preserve hope when ordinary life falls apart.