7 Dreamy Novels Set in the Most Romantic City in the World
Stroll down the Champs-Elysées, smell the delicious
scent of fresh croissants, marvel at the city's famous skyline—and the
best part—on these journeys you'll never
have to say "au revoir."
1 of 7
Lessons in French
By Hilary Reyl
337 pages;
Simon & Schuster
In Hilary Reyl’s appealing debut novel, Lessons
in French,
ambitious young Kate travels all the way to Paris only to find herself in a classic
coming-of-age quagmire—which is to say, she becomes a powerful woman’s personal
assistant. Like so many 20-somethings, Kate is compulsively anxious to
please, hungry for acceptance and all-too-skilled at blending in. The French
culture doesn’t help, either. She admits at the story’s outset, "They say
I have no accent and that this is a gift...but when you feel invisible, there is
no end to the trouble you can get into." Upon arriving at the chic home of
her new employer, an eminent if loopy photographer named Lydia Schell, Kate
becomes embroiled in the family—as infatuated with Lydia’s daughter’s boyfriend
as she is fascinated by the Schells’ friendships with Henri Cartier-Bresson,
Sally Mann, Umberto Eco and the other art-and-literature-world greats who make
cameo appearances throughout. Indeed, Kate is soon everyone’s confidante, which
makes her feel as if she is "living in a Picasso, where everyone talked to
me about everyone else so that I saw their lives from all angles while they had
no idea about mine." Though her struggle to find her own voice is
compelling, it’s the portrait of Paris during the late 1980s that entrances,
from the cafe and chestnut croissants to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Mix in a
handsome love interest or two, and you’ve got a novel you can finish in the
length of a plane ride—a trip that you may just book by
the end of page one.
— Amy Shearn
Published 03/17/2013