Confession time - it had been two weeks since I last read a book set in Paris! Thank goodness that I had this one lined up to read for a blog tour, otherwise I might have needed an intervention!
When Miriam's great-aunt Esther passed away in New York, it is her task to go and sort everything out. Her grandmother and her great-aunt had not been close, but as she begins her task of cleaning up, Mim finds some notebooks which seem to be telling a different one to the story she has always been told. She has always believes that her grandmother had moved to England before the outbreak of WWII, and never wanted to go back to Paris. Why would the stories be so inconsistent? Why did her grandmother and her sister not get along? And who is Lili?
Esther and her family are a Jewish family who work in the music halls of Paris, most specifically the fabulous Bal Tabarin music hall. There she meets Annie, a Canadian woman who has come to Paris to follow her dreams of becoming a ballroom dancer, and ends up at Bal Tabarin. Whilst Esther's sister has already found her place in the theatre as a seamstress, Esther hasn't quite found what her role in the theatre or even in life is.
As war erupts, the family and Annie, who is also Jewish, take a huge chance and go into hiding in plain sight but there is always the chance that someone might inform the authorities. Whilst they all work in the resistance, that is not as much of a focus as you might find in other WWII books, rather it is the individual stories of Esther, Annie and the other dancers which are the focus.
As Mim reads through Esther's notebooks, she has so many questions. In the end, she is helped to understand her aunt's life by the downstairs neighbour, Bibi. And the message of how her aunt lived her life could well help Mim turn her own life around, and might even help repair her relationship with her own sister.
Mim has been in a downward spiral since being involved in an inappropriate relationship which lead to a terrible tragedy about which she feels very guilty. When she is on the plane to New York she meets a man named Lucky and they hit it off, but she can't get over her trust issues so she might end up sabotaging the budding romance before it even gets off the ground.
The author has a passion for dance and it shows in both storylines. My favourite dance aspect was in the modern story as Mim and Lucky try out several different dance styles looking for the one that speaks most clearly to Mim.
As with all dual timelines, there is usually one story that I resonate with more than the other and usually it is the one in the past, and this book is no different. I definitely choked up as we got to the end of the historical story and so many of the questions were answered.
It looks like this is Nicola Rayner's first foray into historical fiction. I hope to read more from her in the future!
I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted by The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews, and the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host here. Be sure to check out other stops on the tour shown below. Thanks to the publisher and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy.
Rating 4/5
About the book
The Paris Dancer
A heart-wrenching and unforgettable story of courage, friendship and resistance, inspired by the incredible true story of a Jewish ballroom dancer in Paris during WWII, perfect for fans of The Paris Library.
Paris, 1938. Annie Mayer arrives in France with dreams of becoming a ballerina. But when the war reaches Paris, she's forced to keep her Jewish heritage a secret. Then a fellow dancer offers her a lifeline: a ballroom partnership that gives her a new identity. Together, Annie and her partner captivate audiences across occupied Europe, using her newfound fame and alias to aid the Resistance.
New York, 2012. Miriam, haunted by her past, travels from London to New York to settle her great-aunt Esther’s estate. Among Esther’s belongings, she discovers notebooks detailing a secret family history and the story of a brave dancer who risked everything to help Jewish families during the war.
As Miriam uncovers Esther’s life in Europe, she realises the story has been left for her to finish. Grappling with loss and the possibility of new love, Miriam must find the strength to reconcile her past and embrace her future.
Purchase Link -
https://amzn.eu/d/3MAASpc
About the author
Born in South Wales, Nicola Rayner is a novelist and dance writer based in London. She is the author of The Girl Before You, which was picked by the Observer as a debut to look out for in 2019, optioned for television and translated into multiple languages. Her second novel, You and Me, was published by Avon, HarperCollins, in 2020. In her day job as a journalist, Nicola has written about dance for almost two decades, cutting her teeth on the tango section of Time Out Buenos Aires. She edited the magazine Dance Today from 2010 to 2015 and worked as assistant editor of Dancing Times, the UK’s leading dance publication, from 2019 until 2022. She continues to dance everything from ballroom to breakdance, with varying degrees of finesse.
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