This past week, I read three novels that took place in #France. My goal throughout this project has been to read one per week, but some countries are just so rich with literature, that choosing just one feels unnecessarily restrictive.
The second novel I read was The Room on Rue Amélie by Kristin Harmel. It takes place in Paris, during the early 1940s.
Similarly to the first novel we read this week, the story is primarily told from the perspective of Ruby - an American woman who has married a French man and moved to Paris. Ruby initially faces the sadness of her family as she moves across the globe, but she is young, ready for adventure, and in love with both her husband, Marcel and the city of Paris. At first, their marriage is strong and happy. Slowly, however, set against the backdrop of the impending war and the fear she has for their beloved Jewish next-door neighbors. Ruby feels Marcel pulling away from her and is not sure what to suspect, but she knows he has a secret he's keeping from her. Eventually, Ruby learns that Marcel is killed as a result of his extremely dangerous secret work in helping downed fighter pilots escape France and get back to the front lines.
Against their initial resistance, she convinces Marcel's former collaborators to allow her to continue his dangerous work. Around the same time, when a mass arrest of Jewish residents by the French police begins across her neighborhood one night, she hides her young teenage neighbor, Charlotte, in her apartment. As it becomes clear that Charlotte's parents have been taken, she stays in Ruby's apartment, and they strike up a deep friendship that becomes familial.
Over the coming months, Ruby and Charlotte keep up the top-secret work of helping fighter pilots return to the war, and eventually, their chance meeting of a very special pilot changes everything.
This was an extraordinarily engaging book, and once again, a very important and necessary look at what life was like for those living in and fighting for their own and for the lives of their neighbors during World War II.
I very highly recommend this novel.
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