Words leave imprints in your mind like footprints in the sand...
1900s, 1980s – As you open the book, careful that the macaroons or the chocolate chips don’t fall out..for this is a novel to tickle your taste buds. However, it’s also a tale of a forbidden love affair and a scandal in Paris starting in 1909..
The story starts in Cambridge England in 1988 (present day)
Petra Stevenson is horrified to learn that her wonderful grandfather’s reputation runs the risk of being ruined. A biographer wants to write about him but threatens to reveal what really happened and the scandal which resulted when he was in Paris all those years ago.
After her grandfather died, Petra finds a photograph with the words ‘forgive me’ on the back. So, Petra decides to find out the truth once and for all and so starts investigating the events of her grandfather’s life. But is she prepared for what she will find?
Paris 1909
Guilluame Du Frere is a railway labourer from Bordeaux who starts a forbidden romance with the daughter of a Parisian Patisserie. Events will soon start to overtake them..
Petra studies at Kings’ College in Cambridge and is in the perfect academic background from which to research a mystery of her own. Having found a mysterious photo, her search takes her far and wide. A scandal in Paris, something her grandfather has never spoken of. Those words ‘ Forgive me’ will link him back to the Clermonts of Paris, a patisserie and a whiff of scandal amongst the cream cakes. Petra’s world of academia is enclosed and static but soon her journey will take her back to Belle Epoque Paris and her grandfather’s early life.
Guillaume du Frere makes his way to Paris to work on the railways but the moment he steps off the platform, the Parisian world over takes him. Life here is fast and dirty for the lower social classes and calm and clean for those who can afford it.
The two worlds collide when he bumps into a lady at the station who he them stumbles into later on when he comes across te Patisserie Clermont. The cake shop for the rich and well to do.
And so begins life in the creamy, steamy and sumptuous world of chocolat chaud, macaroons and Parisian creamy delights. The world of the cake shop is utterly immersive.
See the food created before your very eyes –
Two apprentices were moving from opposite ends using metal nozzles to fill the pastry cases with fluffy cream.
This is the wonderful, sweet world, Guillaume enters into, and his affair with Jeanne Clermont is wonderful ..for a while… as the city and its ideals ar d changing and society’s morals are changing with it.
There were whole, plump roses steeping in honey; purple-stained sugar, thick with lavender, tiny jars of crimson threads, cherries and peaches suspended in syrup as if they had fallen there from the trees.
1900s life is portrayed here in fine and exquisite detail – from the icing on the cakes to the social mores of the people milling around the city, life, culture and habits are observed as if looking through the window of a cake shop – a full world of delights to tickle the taste buds – to give a full flavour of the life and times of 1900s Paris.
Clare:
I’m not sure what I liked best – the mystery and the dual time line story were well done and fascinating to find out what the secret was and how Petra was going to save her grandfather;’s reputation. However I have to confess that I was so enamoured with spending so much time with Gui and Jeanne in the cake shop that this for me was the highlight o f the novel. This book really is like taking a peek inside a patisserie for the sights, smells and feelings it gives you. Delectable but you really have to eat something during the reading of this as you will be licking the pages if not!
