The Paris Key by Juliet Blackwell

A Key to the City of Light

Paris is a magical place.  It’s a place of good food, art, fashion, love, and history. Known for the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Arc de Triumph, and more, it’s one of the most beautiful and one of the most visited cities in the world. It has an undeniable draw, an allure that keeps tourists coming in droves.

For Genevieve, going to Paris is more than a vacation, in The Paris Key. After her marriage crumbles in California, Genevieve moves to Paris and takes over her late uncle’s locksmith shop in an attempt to start a new life for herself. Having spent time in Paris in 1997 after her mother’s death, she has a special connection to this city.  But just as it brings back memories of her mother, it also unlocks unexpected secrets. 

 

Medici Fountain in Luxembourg Gardens.
By Francis Bourgouin - originally posted to Flickr as DSCN0141, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6071768

I really liked this book.  I enjoyed reading about a woman who finds herself, who starts over, and takes control of her life. Mostly, I liked getting immersed in Paris.  I loved how Juliet Blackwell describes the streets, the culture, the foods. Oh, how I wish I could sample all those cheeses and coldcuts while sipping wine and eating good bread!  I can imagine myself walking up the many steps of Montmartre, strolling through the Luxembourg Gardens, or touching the locks at Love Locks Bridge. This book makes me want to have ice cream at Berthillon, find a book at Shakespeare and Company, and roam through the famous Père Lechaise cemetery.

View of Montmartre with Basilica of the Sacre Coeur.
By Christophe Meneboeuf - Own workMore of his work on my photoblog: http://www.pixinn.net, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27878227

When I was eighteen, I was lucky enough to go to Paris with my aunt and uncle for a couple of days. It was a whirlwind trip where we spent hours and hours in a car driving in circles in crazy French traffic trying to get to the Eiffel Tower. We made it right before it rained and I was in awe looking over the great city from way up high, even as the clouds closed in the view.  One day I hope to go back and spend more time there. And if I do go, I’ll think of Genevieve in her small, crowded locksmith shop and how she brought Paris to life for me. 

Me in the Eiffel Tower, 1983.

Can’t get enough of books set in the City of Light?  Click below to read reviews about other Paris-related books.

-Sarah’s Key by Tatiana deRosnay

-Stealing Mona Lisa by Carson Morton

-I Am Madame X  by Gioia Diliberto

-The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

-C’est La Vie: An American Woman Begins a New Life inParis and—Voila!—Becomes Almost French by Suzy Gershman

I don’t usually recommend movies, but in this case I just can’t help myself. If you want to get lost in Paris, both past and present, check out Midnight In Paris— one of my favorite movies that takes a modern-day author, Gil Pender, back to Paris in the 1920s where he stumbles into the art/intellectual scene meeting Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Cole Porter, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald and many more celebrated personalities who end up giving him perspective on his own life in the twenty-first century.

Happy Reading,

Annette