Publisher: 12th July 2022 by Hachette Australia
Pages: 443 pages
How I Read It: ARC book
Genre: historical fiction, World War II, romance
My Rating: 4 cups
Synopsis:
1940s: Elise is a young French woman secretly helping the resistance in German-occupied Paris. Sebastian is a young German soldier working as a translator. They meet, fall in love, and are relishing in the unforeseen happiness they have found in one another, despite being on opposite sides of the war. After liberation, however, the young couple is tragically torn apart, with Sebastian arrested by the French resistance and Elise captured and shamed as a ‘collabo’ by her own people, before being sent to Brittany for her own protection.
The lovers are parted, each believing the other to be lost forever.
1960s: Elise and her 18-year-old daughter, Josephine, live in Brittany, France, with Brigitte, a gruff and bitter Frenchwoman who took Elise in after the war. Josephine has always been told that her father was a Frenchman who died when she was a baby—but when she discovers she is, in fact, the daughter of a German soldier, she travels to England to find out more about her real father. To her shock, she learns he is not dead, but living in the U.K. where he settled after the war and made a new life with his wife, Margaret, an Englishwoman who knows nothing of his past.
When Josephine reveals that her mother Elise is still alive, Sebastian must make the most difficult decision of his life: honor his duty to his new family, or return to his first great love?
My Thoughts
Much like her first book, While Paris Slept, this is a dual wartime historical fiction narrative with an enticing twist that poses difficult questions. Ruth has once again delivered her readers with a tale that is uniquely moving and sure to pull at your heartstrings.
‘It's a funny thing, nationality. What does it really mean to be French? Or to be German?’
Inspired by family history, I loved the character of Sebastian - an ordinary man with unbearable choices. Forced to become part of the German army as a translator and in so doing, partake in an ethos he did not believe in. Elise became his reason for living. The Last Hours of Paris is about love, loss, sorrow and hope. Much like her first novel, Ruth takes you on a journey through Parisian war torn streets where near impossible decisions will need to be made. It will be difficult to have an ending that can avoid heartbreak.
‘… he hardly knows himself. He's never been free to make his own choices. He
was an obedient son who became an obedient soldier. But there's more to him than that. He's a troubled soul.’
This is a story about all the victims of war and the ultimate cost of following your heart. Like I said, it raises difficult questions for which there are never any easy answers - but I love that it makes you think. Emotional turmoil involving family, lovers and in time, their children. This is a well written story ranging from the days of occupation, to liberation to the ramification of collaboration. Historical fiction fans are sure to find The Last Hours in Paris an appealing book.
‘Not excuses, Élise. Reasons. When you get to my age, you see the world differently, you realise there's the story and then there's the story behind it … don't be so quick to judge.'
This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.
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