Moonlight Over Paris

It is such a pleasure to write a book review for a Canadian writer, especially as all of my previous book reviews have featured either UK or USA authors.

Jennifer Robson is a new to me author and her novel Moonlight Over Paris an unexpected delight.

Set in 1924, Lady Helena Montagu-Douglas Parr has led a privileged but sheltered life. Jilted by her fiancé society shuns her without just cause. Life as a spinster stretches interminably before her until she contracts the Scarlet fever. As she lies on her death bed, she vows to grasp life with both hands if granted the chance for survival.

She rallies and determined to fulfil her silent promise she embarks on a journey to Paris to live with her Aunt Agnes for one year while attending the Academie Czerny to study art under the tutelage of the formidable Maitre Czerny. But first, she has the summer to enjoy whiling away the days in the sun kissed South of France, with her Aunt Agnes and a host of family friends.

Sam Howard an American Journalist working in Paris crosses paths with Helena, now known as simply Miss Parr. An unlikely friendship is born on the French Riviera and continues in Paris.

With the arrival of fall, bags are packed, and a returner to Paris sees Helena commencing her study under the tutelage of the formidable but revered Maitre Czerny.

On the first day, Helena meets and bonds with three students, Etienne, Mathilde, and Daisy, all from different backgrounds, which help to bolster Helena’s plummeting self-confidence as she struggles to fulfil the Maitre’s high expectations.

As friendships bloom the reader is given an insight into the Jazz Age Paris of the 1920’s with a behind the scenes look at Paris in the 1920’s from both the privileged and not so monetary viewpoints.

Moonlight Over Paris is a delightful book about friendship and love and reaching for one’s dreams.