Publication Date: October 22, 2024
A family heirloom, handmade in Paris. A wartime sacrifice that changed everything. And a secret kept for generations.
Paris, 1940. Clutching a delicate silver dove-shaped brooch – the last gift from her beloved Otto, with a message of love engraved in the back – Lally flees her home in Paris. With her closest friend by her side, she dodges the Nazi gunfire echoing all around the city streets. But as they become more and more desperate during the darkest days Europe has ever known, one must make a terrible sacrifice for them both to survive…
France, 2014. After her father’s death, grieving Hope starts a new life in France. All she knows of her father’s family is that they were separated in World War Two. And her only inheritance is a unique, dove-shaped brooch.
Exploring an antique market one day, Hope’s breath catches in her throat at what she finds. A wartime picture of a green-eyed girl, a silver brooch pinned to her dress, shaped like a dove in flight. Hope has only ever seen one like it before.
Certain it’s her family heirloom, Hope is desperate to find the woman in the portrait. But it soon becomes clear that some wartime secrets are dangerous to uncover…
Will Hope’s discoveries change everything she ever believed about her father? And even if she does find the truth, will it bring her healing – or tear her apart?
Fans of The Letter, The Nightingale and We Were the Lucky Ones will be utterly swept away by this heartbreaking and unforgettable tale about family secrets in World War Two and the bonds that held people together during terrible times.
The discovery of a portrait at a street market featuring her grandmother’s brooch sparks Hope Granger to dig for more details.
Author Natalie Meg Evans delivers a dual timeline in The Paris Inheritance. The mystery of the portrait is deepened when Hope finds a tattered book accompanying it that details an English girl’s memories of World War II.
However, her search is complicated by Yves Ducasse, who claims the woman in the portrait was his grandmother. With strong attention to detail, the author takes readers on a journey into the past, where one woman’s sacrifice impacted future generations.
The trauma associated with the German occupation of France is woven in along with key historical information. The end result merges the past and present into a compelling story.
The Paris Inheritance showcases the impact family secrets can have on future generations.
Natalie Meg Evans has been an art student, actor, PR copywriter, book-keeper and bar tender but always wanted to write. A USA Today best-seller and RITA nominee, she is author of four published novels which follow the fortunes of strong-minded women during the 1930s and 40s. Fashion, manners and art are the glass through which her characters’ lives are viewed. Each novel is laced with passion, romance and desire. Mystery is never far away.
An avid absorber of history – for her sixth birthday she got a toy Arthurian castle with plastic knights – Natalie views historical fiction as theatre for the imagination. Her novels delve behind the scenes of a prestige industry: high fashion, millinery, theatre, wine making. Rich arenas for love and conflict. Most at home in the English countryside, Natalie lives in rural Suffolk. She has one son.
