The Paris Wife
Paula McLain, 2011
Historical fiction RomanceContemporary fiction
A journey through the vibrant, often chaotic 1920s Paris, tracing the impossible life of an aspiring writer caught between an icon and a fragile dream.
Feels like passion, nostalgia and melancholy. About love, identity and art.
A page from the book
The quiet, brutal truth that sustains any relationship is merely belief.
People belong to each other only as long as they both believe. He stopped believing. Paula McLain.Paula McLain, who wrote this book, grew up in a family of expatriates, giving her firsthand insight into the transient, high-stakes lifestyle of the 'lost generation.'
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Questions readers ask
- What is The Paris Wife like?
- Feels like passion, nostalgia and melancholy. About love, identity and art.
- What should I read after The Paris Wife?
- If you liked The Paris Wife, try Magnolia Parks (Jessa Hastings), When He Was Wicked (Julia Quinn) and Great Big Beautiful Life (Emily Henry).
A taste of the feed
What if a broken heart were something a coroner could actually find?
Can you die from a broken heart, do you know? And if I did and they cut me wide open, would I bleed loving him? When they lift my heart out of my chest cavity to weigh it, does it weigh the same as his top lip? Is his name carved into my third rib to the left? Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. He’s killing me. Loving him is killing me too, and I’m afraid because how many loves really, do you get in a lifetime? How many chances do you give it before you let it go?
Magnolia Parks · Jessa Hastings
The exact moment unspoken feelings become too powerful to contain.
Why?Why? Why?” He gave each one a different tenor, as if he were testing out the word, asking it to different people. “Why?” he asked again, this time with increased volume as he turned around to face her. “Why? It’s because I love you, damn me to hell. Because I’ve always loved you. Because I loved you when you were with John, and I loved you when I was in India, and God only knows I don’t deserve you, but I love you, anyway.” Francesca sagged against the door. “How’s that for a witty little joke?” he mocked. “I loveyou. I loveyou, my cousin’s wife. I loveyou, the one woman I can never have. I loveyou, Francesca Bridger-ton Stirling.
When He Was Wicked · Julia Quinn
The compliment that sounds like an insult until it isn’t.
I think you live in a world that’s more interesting than the one most people live in,” he says, and just as my heart starts to sink with disappointment, with a kind of loneliness, he adds, “and I wish I could live in it too.” I feel myself beaming. “I’ll take you sometime.” “I’d like that,” he says.
Great Big Beautiful Life · Emily Henry
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