Eclectic short stories, some will even transport you to Paris!

3rd March 2017

Paris for One by Jojo Moyes, eclectic short stories, some will even transport you to Paris!

A collection of short stories with relationships at the heart, each with a twist. Some set in Paris, some set in England….

The Louboutin red shoe, the Pont des Arts love padlocks and the Louvre

A novella-length story is first up and it is Nell “not the adventurous type” who embarks on a romantic trip to Paris, with Pete her beau. But at the Eurostar Terminal in London they engage in a text dialogue with makes it rather clear that Pete has no intention of joining her. She has even given up her girls’ trip to Brighton to spend a couple of romantic days with him. Arriving at the Gare Du Nord as you do on Eurostar – toute seule, of course – she has to sort out transport to her hotel but on arrival there she is dismayed to find the room has been double-booked. The first night sees her sharing with another woman. Such a grim way to start her weekend. She is more than ready to turn tail straight back to England.

But of course this is the city of romance and she is soon enjoying the company of Frenchman Fabien… will the course of true love run smoothly?

Then there is wittily titled “Between the Tweets” and tells of the machinations of Mr Travis, an erstwhile popular TV personality whose ratings have slipped. On Twitter he is being trolled by a woman who is claiming to have had a saucy relationship with him, denting his squeaky clean family-man image. A nice little twist ensues.

In another story “Crocodile Shoes” the Yummy Mummies prevail, with a pair of red Louboutins that seemingly have magical powers  (but then any girl knows that Louboutins can transform lives!). One woman encounters success whilst wearing a ‘borrowed’ pair.

And a few stories later it is back once again to Paris for one of the longer stories. It is a dual timeline of two relationships 90 years apart, one set in 1912, the other in 2002. Both couples are newlyweds and the connection between the two becomes wonderfully apparent at the end. Liv, in the present, on her honeymoon with David, is very much a wife out of sorts. They are in Paris only for a few days, but he is intent on closing a work deal, leaving her to her own sulking devices. Back to the early 19th century and artist Édouard Lefèvre (no, not the French entomologist who specialised in coleoptera) marries Sophie, a country girl, perceived rather as a peasant sort by many of the people in his set. The cobbled streets and the bars and food of yesteryear, and the Paris of today are beautifully brought to life – from the magical Pont des Arts with all its love padlocks (the river below apparently has to be dredged regularly to remove the rusted tokens that have accumulated into the water) to the Louvre and swish hotels – this is a story to evoke Paris both past and present.

This is an eclectic collection of short stories that will entertain and divert.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

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