Letters from Paris by Juliet Blackwell (Early Review)
Letters from Paris is a delightful read. I found myself thinking about the story and characters while away from the book; It felt both homey and exciting at once. Claire has gone to Paris in a sort-of soul search. She has just left Chicago and her boyfriend to go back home to Louisiana, where her mammaw doesn’t have much time left. With her last breath, Claire’s grandmother strongly encourages her to go to Paris in search of answers to a family mystery.
Claire is known as “Chance” by her family. Nicknames are great, but sometimes she is referred to both “Claire” and “Chance in the same sentence. It read clumsily but definitely got better the further into the book you go. Once in Paris, Claire finds herself working as a translator in Moulage Lombardi, a decorative mask-making shop. For most of the book, the story was an interesting-but-not-perfect read. Some of the writing in the beginning seemed more a late draft rather than a finished product but thankfully it was only slightly distracting and I could still enjoy the story. The ending, however, was very exciting and took a twist that I didn’t see coming. It’s actually one of the more surprising twists in a book that I’ve read, but looking back I could see the clues earlier in the book. The ending definitely brought the book from “good” to “great” for me.