... an unforgettable story of resistance, trust, faith and love. Starting with the novel's opening pages, Guggenheim fellow Ellen Feldman immediately grabs readers' hearts and never lets go ... The best works of historical fiction have a way of illuminating the present, allowing readers to better understand themselves through well-defined characters reflected in the prism of time. In Paris Never Leaves You, Ellen Feldman does this beautifully in a multi-layered, tender story that explores the emotionally charged, often parallel terrains of truth, deception, love and heartbreak.
... gripping ... vivid depictions of Paris in wartime ... Things are seldom as they seem in this engrossing tale of identity, survival, loyalty, and love. With frequent time shifts and dubious identities, the author adds considerable depth to her well-crafted tale. Recommended with enthusiasm to anyone with an interest in Paris at war and the much broader themes noted above.
... nuanced ... The night Julian saves Charlotte and Vivi from a roundup, he and Charlotte become lovers and he confides a dangerous secret that gives Feldman’s story a gasp-worthy spin, elevating an otherwise conventional wartime love story. With its appealing heroine and historically detailed settings, romance fans will find this satisfying.
As a new entrant in the unlikely but burgeoning genre of Holocaust romance fiction, Paris Never Leaves You is a cut above the average thanks to the storytelling skill of its author ... Thus, the book offers language a reader won’t trip over, an enthralling plot with many melodramatic and obvious twists, and a real stunner toward the end, along with, unfortunately, the standard cardboard characters ... Ultimately, however, such attempts at a higher theme fall flat, because both Charlotte and Horace Field, the publisher, are too exquisitely ethical to be believed ... Readers should simply enjoy this novel for what it is: a good yarn with some well-drawn descriptions of Paris during the Nazi Occupation and the publishing life in the fifties.
It’s hard to get your bearings in the novel’s awkward beginning pages. But author Feldman soon regains control, and the narrative proceeds at a brisk pace ... Though some of their secrets are a bit improbable—leaving the reader feeling intentionally misled—it doesn’t much matter. The story is involving, and the big-ticket themes—having to do with loyalty, betrayal, and what it takes to survive—are mostly handled in a graceful, nuanced way (though Charlotte’s guilt does feel overblown). Wartime Paris is described in vivid, sometimes harrowing, detail ... An uneven but engrossing page-turner.
