Nothing is quite what it seems... Wartime Paris is described in vivid, sometimes harrowing, detail... [An] engrossing page-turner. --Kirkus

The best works of historical fiction have a way of illuminating the present, allowing readers to better understand themselves through well-defined characters reflected in the prism of time.... Feldman does this beautifully in a multi-layered, tender story that explores the emotionally charged, often parallel terrains of truth, deception, love and heartbreak. --Shelf Awareness

A nuanced WWII story of love and survival in Occupied Paris... With its appealing heroine and historically detailed settings... a dangerous secret gives Feldman's story a gasp-worthy spin. --Publisher's Weekly

Things are seldom as they seem in this engrossing tale of identity, survival, loyalty, and love...Recommend with enthusiasm. --Library Journal

Ellen Feldman's writing is riveting in this beautiful novel that tells the bittersweet story of a young mother's strength and survival during WWII. From a tiny bookstore in Nazi-occupied Paris to a post-war New York publishing house, Feldman effortlessly captures the terror, immediacy, and inextinguishable human spirit. --Noelle Salazar, author of The Flight Girls

Completely compelling. I tore through it. This novel pivots on how we manage to survive surviving... Charlotte's visceral story will stay with me." --Naomi Wood, New York Times best-selling author of Mrs. Hemingway and The Hiding Game

Feldman's powerful exploration of some of the most profound questions about love and loyalty resonates strongly today: What would you do to save your child? What is morality in wartime? How do we make peace with the past? --Christina Lynch, author of The Italian Party

This is an exquisite novel - one that gives us what we're hungry for: an intelligent, complex female character who challenges our ideas of right and wrong, morality and immorality. We're reminded, too, of the dangers of drawing easy, swift conclusions. Feldman achieves all of this with wholly admirable precision and wit; she takes aim and does not miss. --Elizabeth J. Church, author of The Atomic Weight of Love and All the Beautiful Girls

A fluid, rich, and nuanced novel, expertly crafted, guaranteed to follow you around long after you've turned the last page. I gulped it down." --Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra, Vera, The Witches, and A Great Improvisation

Feldman's characters--in the Paris bookstore that harbors many secrets or the Manhattan publishing house with its marvelous cast of misfits--are both terrifying and utterly engaging. With more twists and turns than the back streets of Paris, the story is as propulsively readable as a spy novel, and as rich and psychologically rewarding as only the finest literature can be. --Liza Gyllenhaal, author of Local Knowledge and Bleeding Heart

...a vivid and precise portrait of that city under German occupation during the Second World War, but it is also an exploration of the courage and cowardice of those bitter years, as well as offering a slyly persuasive love story. The swift, engrossing narrative conceals, in the best way, the fact that Feldman is also giving us a wise and troubling lesson about the great moral crisis of the last century. --Richard Snow, author of Iron Dawn

A thrilling achievement...I was thoroughly drawn into a deep, rich, vivid world of engrossing characters and emotional and moral crises...a great piece of writing in every way." --Fred Allen, Leadership Editor, Forbes