Forthcoming #FridayReads: PARIS NEVER LEAVES YOU + a Letter to Librarians

This week’s Forthcoming #FridayReads pick is PARIS NEVER LEAVES YOU, historical fiction set in alternating timelines featuring Nazis, the 1950s publishing industry, and a mother forced to make some hard decisions for survival. PLUS keep reading for a special love letter to librarians from the author, Ellen Feldman.

Charlotte is a survivor. She lived through WWII in Paris, working in a bookstore under the watchful eye of the Nazis. Now she and her daughter, Vivi, are safely settled on the upper east side of Manhattan. She’s found a place for herself as an editor in the clubby, eccentric world of NYC publishing and she’s drawn to a man who could quite possibly be the love of her life. However, Vivi is beginning to ask questions about her mother’s past. No one but Charlotte knows her new life has been built on a foundation of lies, one she began to lay the day her fate became entwined with that of a German officer. As everything Charlotte is building for herself and her daughter is threatened, she’s forced to reckon with her past and in doing so risk all she has gained. Alternating between wartime Paris and 1950s New York publishing, PARIS NEVER LEAVES YOU is a compelling story of resilience, love, and impossible choices, exploring how survival never comes without a cost.

Librarian excitement for PARIS NEVER LEAVES YOU:

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AND NOW, Ellen Feldman joins us to share her love for libraries:

Though I am fond of bookshops, I am in thrall to libraries. In bookstores, I browse. In libraries, I lose myself. Bookstores tend to offer a view of the current scene. Libraries are time travel machines to other eras. Bookstores smell crisp, with, these days, a dash of exotically flavored coffee. Libraries are a tad musty with a whiff of nostalgia and a soupcon of coziness.

From the down-on-its-heels house-turned-neighborhood-library of my childhood through the gothic haven of my college years to the monumental resources and architecture of the New York Public Library and the unique charm and collection of the New York Society Library where I do most of my research and writing, I have spent a good deal of my life in libraries – and with librarians, the true romantic heroes of our age. They aren’t famous for being famous. They haven’t invented an app to do something no one wanted to do in the first place. They are underpaid, undervalued, and often undermined. Yet in the face of all that, they retain their passion for books and their generosity to those who read them.