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Now that we’ve left the celebration of witches behind, I am so ready to curl up with Veronica and Stoker for another adventure.  While an adventure it will be, cozy is definitely the vibe of A Treacherous Curse, and it’s perfect for the hustle and bustle of the last month or two of the year.  I’m planning a reread of the first two titles in the series before diving into our aforementioned Virtual Book Club title we’d love to discuss with you on Friday, December 9 at 7:30 p.m. CST.  Don’t forget to sign up right HERE and secure your copy of A Treacherous Curse (Veronica Speedwell #3) with plenty of time for you to enjoy it beforehand.

Welcome to my confession dear readers.  I was scared to read The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher.  Our celebration of witches has been full of amazing tales of powerful women and I was scared this story of an independent woman in the 1920s was going to be gut wrenching and just plain sad.  It was and it wasn’t, AND, truly, it was like a warm hug.  To dive into a world of literature that was already vaguely familiar, and hear some of the (fictional) antics of the (very real) characters in a city I adore and long to return to was so special.  And that doesn’t even get us to the real star of the novel, Sylvia Beach, our protagonist.

Miss Beach grew up in a household of sisters with a missionary father, and spent some of her most formative years in Paris, enjoying all the City of Lights has to offer.  She adores a French bookstore she discovers in the Latin Quarter and finds much inspiration there and with its proprietor before her family returns to the US.  After working hard to support the Suffrage movement, and during the Great War, she moves back to Paris, the city that’s always had a hold on her, and determines her true passion, the work her soul needs, is to run an English language bookstore in Paris, with the help and support of the proprietor of it’s French inspiration, Adrienne, and the friends she’s made there.  

As one does in Paris in the 1920s, Sylvia befriends many literary greats of the time, the names we all know.  Readers experience the journey Sylvia embarks as a female business owner in an enlightened city, living her best life, while the US goes through a moral experiment that feels all too familiar to this modern reader.  That’s right, prohibition plus the continued restrictions on who is allowed to love who romantically, and what authors are allowed to say in books, none of which are factors in Paris.  Please calgon, take me away!

Sylvia’s plights in The Paris Bookseller are real, and include family and romantic drama, business struggles, and even in an enlightened place and time, the patriarchy tries to keep a strong, independent woman down.  But all throughout, her determination and perseverance are inspiring, as are the many lush descriptions of the sights and sounds of Paris.  Reading this title made me long to return to the city and visit (or revisit) some of the places Sylvia frequented, attempting to see the city as it was a century ago.  

I’m giving The Paris Bookseller 4.5 stars for a gorgeous story, picturesque writing, and an overall calm, uplifting reading experience.  I am going to round up, as this has potential for one of my favorite books of the year.  I may reread it, hopefully as I’m planning a future trip to Paris, and I will definitely continue to follow Maher’s work.

What’s a book that surprised you with the reading experience?

~Nikki

Let’s take a ride in my time machine to May of 2020 when Heart.Wants.Books. First reviewed a title by Kerri Maher, her 2018 debut novel The Kennedy Debutante. I discussed how author Maher lives with her family outside of Boston, how she had just published The Girl in White Gloves about Hollywood starlet turned Princess Grace Kelly, and how she was working on another title, The Paris Bookseller. So, here we are two and a half years later discussing that 2020 work in progress! Two things of note that have changed regarding her bio. There’s mention of a 2013 memoir called This is Not a Writing Manual written under the name Kerri Majors that chronicles Maher’s journey through the writing life for those budding authors who have lots of questions about what that’s like. Additionally, there is the fact that she’s the founder of the award-winning YA literary magazine, YARN. According to her website, Maher is also working on another historical fiction novel set to release in 2023, but we don’t have any other details besides that. Phew. All caught up.

Remember, Darling Readers, Paris is always a good idea. And so it didn’t take much effort (any at all really) to convince Nikki that we needed to armchair travel to the City of Lights. I have always felt that I ‘should on’ myself as regards literature of the 1920’s with the fact that I don’t feel I have read enough works or authors to be judgemental about it. Coupled with the few works or authors I have read and the fact I didn’t particularly enjoy them. (Here’s looking at you, Hemingway.) I thought perhaps reading about Sylvia Beach and her English language bookstore of Shakespeare and Company, where all of these American expat authors congregated for one reason or another, would give me a knowledge base and appreciation for the time period that I didn’t have before. I am pleased to acknowledge that it has. Reading fictional accounts about a bookstore owner and publisher, and the adventures and clout she had within the literary scene of the time was truly a delight.

While reading about Sylvia Beach’s daily small business struggles and the headaches of publishing such a writer as James Joyce in the times before digital backups (egads!), what really stuck out to me was the French cultural norms that Sylvia adopted. Like long lunch times where the shop was closed to customers and extended holidays, for weeks at a time, often multiple times a year. I am amazed how Sylvia did it with just one part-time shop assistant and whatever typists she needed for publishing James Joyce’s Ulysses. Reading about her private relationship with Adrienne Monnier and how that played out in public and professionally was an interesting hook that kept me going.

I’m going to give The Paris Bookseller a solid 4 star review, mostly because I don’t see myself re-reading this book. It has definitely re-ignited my desire to read titles by and about the famous authors of the 1920s and 1930s, and as always, made my desire to return to Paris to re-ignite ten-fold. 

~Ashley

P.S. The current Shakespeare and Company Bookstore in Paris is NOT the same one that we read about in Maher’s work. But, there is a fabulous and short history of the current shop on their website here.

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