![]() ![]() Through all the story threads, there’s a fabulous talisman – some might call it the McGuffin of the novel – a jewel encrusted bauble covering a remnant of cloth soaked in Joan of Arc’s blood. ![]() It’s the touchstone for all the characters as they jump off into life or come back to the Ritz for comfort.Īurelie, in 1914, finds herself bored with her mother’s salon of poets and novelists and after she drops her boyfriend off at the front, she takes off to the family castle in the French countryside. ![]() In each thread, the elegant Ritz stands as a beacon of glorious civilization, populated by the kind of service people who give exquisitely polite and perfect service and then fade into the background. The tie the third woman has to the first two is more tenuous and is one of the mysterious threads of the novel. She’s the first character’s mother and the second character’s grandmother. In the two earlier storylines, there’s a woman who lives in a suite at the Ritz. It has three separate storylines, each focused on a different woman – one in 1914, one in 1942, and one in 1964. Being a hotel brat myself, I enjoyed this method of tying the novel together. Williams, Willig and White, three bestselling authoresses who write historical adventures, romances and mysteries, have teamed up for the third time to write a wonderfully rich novel with a through line of the Paris Ritz. ![]()
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