‘A glorious evocative read’ Ruth Hogan
A gorgeous novel of family secrets and self-discovery from the bestselling author of Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman and Two Women in Rome.

'Vividly conjures the excitement of Paris' RUTH HOGAN, bestselling author of THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS

'Beguiling' Times

Can she escape the darkness of her past in the City of Light?

It's 1959 and time for eighteen-year-old Sophie's real life to start. Her existence in the village of Poynsdean, Sussex, with her austere foster-father, the Reverend Osbert Knox, and his frustrated wife Alice, is stultifying. She finds diversion and excitement in a love affair, but soon realizes that if she wants to live life on a bigger canvas she must take matters into her own hands.

She dreams of escape to Paris, the wartime home her French mother fled before her birth. Getting there will take spirit and ingenuity, but it will be her chance to discover more about her family background, and, perhaps, to find a place where she can finally belong.

When Sophie eventually arrives in the Paris arising from the ashes of the war, it's both everything she imagined, and not at all what she expected.

'Original, page turning, wonderful. I loved it.' KATIE FFORDE

'A delightful, funny, poignant story suffused with the atmosphere of Paris on the cusp of the Sixties' RACHEL HORE