The Room on Rue Amélie - Kristin Harmel

Written by Kristin Harmel
Read by Madeleine Maby, Jacques Roy
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Release date: March 27, 2018
Duration: 10:07:16

A moving and entrancing novel set in Paris during World War II about an American woman, a dashing pilot, and a young Jewish girl whose fates unexpectedly entwine—

When Ruby first marries the dashing Frenchman she meets in a coffee shop, she pictures a life strolling arm in arm along French boulevards, awash in the golden afternoon light. But it’s 1938, and war is looming on the horizon.

Unfortunately, her marriage soon grows cold and bitter, her husband Marcel, distant and secretive—all while the Germans flood into Paris, their sinister swastika flags waving in the breeze. When Marcel is killed, Ruby discovers the secret he’d been hiding—he was a member of the French resistance—and now she is determined to take his place.

She becomes involved in hiding Allied soldiers—including a charming RAF pilot—who have landed in enemy territory. But her skills are ultimately put to the test when she begins concealing her twelve-year-old Jewish neighbor, Charlotte, whose family was rounded up by the Gestapo. Ruby and Charlotte become a little family, but as the German net grows tighter around Paris, and the Americans debate entering the combat, the danger increases. No one is safe.

”… The subject matter of Harmel’s latest novel overlaps somewhat with recent book club favorites Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Martha Hall Kelly’s Lilac Girls but differs in ultimately focusing primarily on the development of a wartime romance rather than on immersive details of life under German occupation or on the tough moral choices required of such a life. She does create likable if somewhat cliched protagonists. Ruby’s journey from sheltered wife to confident heroine is an enjoyable one, even if the book’s ending feels more than a little emotionally manipulative. VERDICT Recommended for fans of World War II historical fiction who need a break from some of the grittier titles out there.– 2018 Library Journal,