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Poison

Poison
  • Author(s): Kathryn Harrison
  • Location(s): Versailles, Madrid, Paris
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): 17th century

Francisca de Luarac, the daughter of a poor Spanish silk grower, is a dreamer of fabulous dreams. Marie Louise de Bourbon, the niece of Louis XIV, dances in slippers of fine Spanish silk in the French Court of the...

Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man

Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man
  • Author(s): Edward Wilson
  • Location(s): Massif Central, Suffolk
  • Genre(s): Suspense, Fiction
  • Era(s): WW2 and present

1941: a teenage William Catesby leaves Cambridge to join the army and support the war effort. Parachuted into Occupied France as an SOE officer, he witnesses tragedies and remarkable feats of bravery during the French Resistance. 2014: now in...

Ports of Call

Ports of Call
  • Author(s): Amin Maalouf
  • Location(s): Montpellier, Beirut, Haifa
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): WW2

Ossyane, a young Lebanese of both aristocratic Ottoman and humble Armenian origins, goes to Montpellier, France, to study away from the burden of his liberal father’s revolutionary ambitions. World War II breaks out and Ossyane is drawn into the...

Possession

Possession
  • Author(s): A S Byatt
  • Location(s): Brittany, England
  • Genre(s): Romance

Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail...

Proud of You

Proud of You
  • Author(s): Mary Wood
  • Location(s): Paris
  • Genre(s): Historical, Fiction

A heartfelt historical saga from Mary Wood, Proud of You is a page-turning novel with a compelling mystery at its heart. Alice, an upper-class Londoner, is recruited into the Special Operations Executive and sent to Paris where she meets...

Rabble!

Rabble!
  • Author(s): Geoffrey Fox
  • Location(s): Paris
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): 1870's Paris Commune

1870.17-year-old apprentice bookbinder Étienne Bonin travels from revolutionary Lyon to even more revolutionary Paris seeking excitement and professional opportunity. By the spring of 1871 he is deeply committed to the insurrection for workers’ power, to a new lover —...

Red Pill

Red Pill
  • Author(s): Hari Kunzru
  • Location(s): Paris, Berlin, London, New York City (NYC)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Contemporary

After receiving a prestigious writing fellowship in Germany, the narrator of “Red Pill” arrives in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee and struggles to accomplish anything at all. Instead of working on the book he has proposed to write, he...

Régine

Régine
  • Author(s): Paul Louis Rossi
  • Location(s): Nantes
  • Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs, Fiction
  • Era(s): 1930-1950

Published in 1990 in French original, this book is one of a pair by Rossi about his time in Nantes in Western France. For literary tourists Rossi names places that can be found. The very first paragraph speaks of...

Renoir’s Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon

Renoir’s Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon
  • Author(s): Catherine Hewitt
  • Location(s): Paris, France
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): 1880s

In the 1880s, Suzanne Valadon was considered the Impressionists’ most beautiful model. But behind her captivating façade lay a closely-guarded secret. Born in poverty in rural France, as a teenager Suzanne began, in Montmartre, posing for – and having...

Revolution

Revolution
  • Author(s): Jennifer Donnelly
  • Location(s): Brooklyn, Paris
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical, Young Adult
  • Era(s): Modern, French Revolution (18th century)

BROOKLYN: Andi Alpers is on the edge. She’s angry at her father for leaving, angry at her mother for not being able to cope, and heartbroken by the loss of her younger brother, Truman. Rage and grief are destroying...

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