The Lost Girls of Paris

The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff. Park Row, 2019. 384 pages. ***** Questions for Discussion.

1946, Manhattan.  Grace Healey is working and finding herself after losing her husband during the war. While passing through Grand Central Terminal on her way to work, she finds a suitcase underneath a bench. On an impulse, Grace opens the abandoned suitcase, where she discovers photographs of different women. Already late for work, Grace takes the photographs and quickly leaves the station.

Grace soon learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a ring of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war. Twelve of these women were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers and radio operators to aid the resistance, but they never returned home, their fates a mystery. Setting out to learn the truth behind the women in the photographs, Grace finds herself drawn to a young mother turned agent named Marie.

Told in the alternating voices of these brave women, Jenoff has written a compelling story of romance, mystery, love, betrayal, and friendship. Once I started this book I kept reading to find out what happened to Marie and the other girls. Providing an inside glimpse into the dangers encountered in working in the Resistance; the need for leaving family and children behind, traveling to unknown destinations, living a "cover" identity and accepting that betrayal is a fact of this life. Grace and Marie both fall in love in unexpected situations and their actions have long-reaching consequences.

The women of World War II seems to be a popular historical fiction genre right now and fans of The Lilac Girls, Wartime Sisters,  and The Alice Network will not be disappointed in The Lost Girls of Paris.


I received an ecopy for a review.

Pam Jenoff is the author of The Kommandant's Girl, which was an international bestseller and nominated for a Quill award, as well as The Winter Guest, The Diplomat's Wife, The Ambassador’s Daughter, Almost Home, A Hidden Affair and The Things We Cherished. She also authored a short story in the anthology Grand Central: Original Postwar Stories of Love and Reunion. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and three children.

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