Paris by the Book by Liam Callanan
This is a novel I really enjoyed. Leah and her family live in Milwaukee. She is the primary breadwinner and her husband Robert is a writer. He often goes away for short periods of time without notice to write. This time, he doesn't return. As Leah reports him missing and begins to search for clues to his disappearance, she finds a reservation for four plane tickets to Paris, a place they had dreamed of visiting for years.
Once in Paris, they sightsee, planning to return before school starts again in the fall, but when they find an unfinished manuscript that Robert had been writing, and that it is set in Paris, Leah and her daughters Daphne and Ellie find a bookstore that mirrors the one in the manuscript, and buy it from the woman who owns it. They move into the building, living above the bookstore, with the owner, an older woman, living above them.
They also begin looking after the woman's twin grandchildren, who are younger than Daphne and Ellie, and whose father travels a lot for his job.
As the trio adjust to their new life in Paris, they also all privately keep an eye out for Robert, sure that he will appear at some point.
There is also an interesting layer about two of the most popular French children's books, Madeline by Bemelman and The Red Balloon by Lamorisse.
The book is told from Leah's point of view and captures her emotions well. She thinks back on how she and Robert met and ended up together, and about some of the difficulties they had in their marriage. She feels both loss of his presence and relief of him not being there. Leah had wanted to be a filmmaker, and had studied in that field, but her need to create a stable environment for her family had her giving up her dream, while Robert still pursued his.
This is not a light novel, but it is one that is very relatable in the complexity of relationships and life dreams.
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