All the Flowers in Paris by Sarah Jio

5*

Like one of its final lines, Sarah Jio’s beautiful and haunting time-slip novel is “tragic and heart-breaking but also redemptive and triumphant.” Caroline Williams is an American woman in modern-day Paris who suffers from amnesia due to an accident. After she is released from the hospital, she meets Victor, the chef at Bistro Jeanty, and begins to fall in love with him as he helps guide her through her slowly-emerging, painful memories. She has random glimpses of a past that includes a child. This is also the story of Céline, a young widow during the Nazi occupation who works in her family’s florist shop and cares for her young daughter Cosi. She’s in love with her childhood friend, Luc Jeanty, but when he leaves for a few weeks, the Nazis take her half-Jewish father and daughter away and she is forced to live with a cruel and sadistic Nazi officer who continually rapes her. (Both her neighbors and Luc’s mother turned them in.) Her daughter escapes from the truck carrying her away, and is hidden under the floorboards for almost a year before Paris is liberated.

Caroline, who is living in the same apartment where Céline was imprisoned, finds a box containing letters written by Celine to Luc. With the help of a graduate student who is doing research on Celine and a Bistro Jeanty patron and the building’s doorman (both of whom suffered losses in the war), Celine’s full story emerges. Like all great time-slip novels, there are distinct parallels between the dual storylines. In this case, it’s about two ferocious moms who will do anything to protect their daughters. Both female protagonists suffer devastating losses, and it’s an artifact from Celine’s time during the war that enables Caroline to emerge from her amnesia and grief to rejoin the living and accept love. In the words of Celine’s daughter Cosi, written in her childhood journal, “I think that the most important things in life are thankfulness, forgiveness, and love.” Very highly recommended.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Ballantine Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.