Juliette and her husband Kevin have traveled from America to France for a much needed holiday. Juliette’s grandmother Marie was French and she moved to America after the end of the Second World War. Kevin can’t wait to return home, Juliette discovers why, she decides to stay in Paris and investigate her grandmothers mysterious past. The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris is a story of love and courage, sacrifice and surrender. It’s a tale of heartbreak and hope as the two lead characters from both timelines are on a journey of self discovery. I highly recommend it as I found it a moving and memorable story.

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This is a wonderful novel. I especially liked the descriptions about Mathilde and Jacques. Their story is filled with hope and is heartbreaking at the same time. The book is brilliantly written. The reader is transported in time to wartime Paris. The fear of the citizens, the “disappearing” Jewish people and the strength of the human spirit to hope and resist in the face of terrible odds. If this book is on your reading list, please read it and I really hope that you'll find things that I possibly missed! I hope that you'll enjoy it more than I did 😊 As for me, on to better books: The Lindberg Nanny & The Book Spy!!!! One of the most amazing stories I've read! I finished reading it with tears in my eyes and couldn't stop thinking about it. The two past and present storylines meld together in a surprising mystery. Included are the tragedies of WWII with the Nazi occupation of Paris and Daisy does a superb job of telling not only the love story of Jacque and Mathilde but also his evolution throughout this experience. The contemporary tale, whilst a well worn trope of marriage breakdown and moving to a new country for rediscovery is well used, with the addition of setting up a bookstore and discovering family heritage, Daisy does a solid job of it. All up is a poignant tale told from many aspects with engaging characters and tribulations to overcome.The couple live in an apartment a couple of floors above the bookshop, under the close scrutiny of Madame Bourdain and they don’t know if they can trust her? Mathilde finds living under German occupation difficult, the Gestapo are watching her movements and she has to flee Paris. This book moves from 1940-1945 to 2020. The reader learns about Jacques and Mathilde’s lives. In 2020, we learn about Juliette’s struggle to open the bookshop and the discoveries she makes. The reader can take it from there as the story morphs into Juliette’s “Forgotten Bookshop” and Jacques and Mathilde’s story unfolds.

It's a dual POV and dual timeline story with one part set in occupied Paris during WWII. It's more than a love story: it's many love stories, many stories of people being brave and saving others. Jacques POV is poignant and at times hard to read, but there's also hope. Books were his livelihood, his passion, his raison d’être; how could he allow them to be destroyed? He had already accepted so much humiliation from the Nazis but this was a step too far.’The occupation continues and the couple witness atrocities to their fellow Parisians, Mathilde is determined to become involved with any sort of resistance. However, after she is taken in by the Police and brought home by Herr Schmidt, he makes it perfectly clear that she leave Paris and for which he has arranged a pass. As things turn out the couple are already hiding a woman in the secret room and it's decided for Mathilde to take her on the train south with her. Jacques stays in Paris to look after his ailing mother as well as running his bookshop. While it bothers me to read about a woman whining about an unfaithful husband and an unhappy marriage, I was relieved to hear that this author created a strong female who stood her ground and did something about it; albeit a rather unrealistic ‘move’ and ‘ending.’ I wanted to love this book, but for me it was a complete letdown. Juliette in the present timeline was a character I could care less about and her double standards and whining annoyed me to no end. Her story honestly made me want to DNF the book. The past timeline was better than the present, but it didn’t have much of a wow factor and was actually quite bland. I didn’t connect with the characters like I wanted to.