Stevie‘s review of I’ll See You in Paris by Michelle Gable
Women’s Historical Fiction published by Thomas Dunne Books 09 Feb 16
After my last experience with the subgenres, I’d vowed to stay away from both romances featuring writers and books with a story-within-a-story for a while. This book’s blurbs (and there seem to be a multitude of different ones online), gave no indication that it was either, when in fact it turned out to be both. Nonetheless, I gave it every possible chance to overcome my reservations, and it mostly succeeded on the second count, at least. There are multiple layers of story in this book: Annie’s quest to learn about her parentage and about the mysterious woman whose biography she starts reading when she finds herself staying close to where it was written; the story of the woman who may or may not have been the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, the former Gladys Deacon; the story of how that book came to be written and what happened to its writer afterwards. The various stories wound around each other and kept me in the dark as to what was real for the characters and what was fictional, even within their world, right up to the end.
Sadly, the book fails on so very many other counts. Firstly, and I’ve ranted about this before, when writing about the British (or any other nationality’s) nobility, it’s essential to get the titles and forms of address correct. The wife of a duke is never addressed as Lady anything – she’s the Duchess of whatever, or her/your Grace, unless she’s stated that she wants her companions to use her forename or nickname. It’s not difficult to research in these days of almost total internet, especially not when one is researching a real person for the book anyway. Anyway, the author mentions Burke’s – she could have looked it all up there.
If that isn’t bad enough, none of the English characters’ dialogue sounds remotely natural in any time period that the book covers, and, to add insult to my already injured British pride, the characters drink in quaint rural pubs where their drinks are brought to their table. Since when?! Drinks go on the bar for onwards transportation by the person getting the round in or for drinking where they’re placed, unless one is living in an earlier age and has a private room (or possibly if the drinks come with a meal – but that’s quite rare, and doesn’t fit what happened here).
Then there’s Annie. How much did she annoy me? Yes, she’s supposed to be young and slightly unworldly, but her attitudes just grated. Not that I liked many of the other characters much, except possibly Gus and his brother some of the time. And I didn’t find the romance remotely satisfying – we only see it in the background, and the ending to it was far from unexpected, no matter what some of the blurbs would have us believe.
Another author I now know to avoid in future.
Grade: D
Summary:
New York Times Best Selling Author of A Paris Apartment
Three women, born generations apart.
One mysterious book that threads their lives together.
A journey of love, discovery, and truth…I’ll See You in Paris is based on the real life of Gladys Spencer-Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, a woman whose life was so rich and storied it could fill several books. Nearly a century after Gladys’s heyday, a young woman’s quest to understand the legendary Duchess takes her from a charming hamlet in the English countryside, to a dilapidated manse kept behind barbed wire, and ultimately, to Paris, where answers will be found at last. In the end, she not only solves the riddle of the Duchess but also uncovers the missing pieces in her own life.
At once a great love story and literary mystery, I’ll See You in Paris will entertain and delight, with an unexpected ending that will leave readers satisfied and eager for Gable’s next novel.
Read an excerpt.
