Paris Ever After

Paris Ever After

A Novel by

K.S.R. Burns

Velvet Morning Press, 1 May 2018

257 pages, ebook only

Romance, Second Chances

I purchased this book at the current price. This is my honest review for which I receive no compensation of any kind.

✮✮✮✮⭒

The cover is lovely and certainly pertains to the book and its contents. I absolutely love the colors used.

The story is very interesting and has its twists and turns and secrets. The characters are written very well and seem like real people, not stick figures. These people live and have passions. They have disasters and successes. They fall in love and have heartbreaks. They suffer loss and grieve.

The pace of the story is such that you just keep going from one event to the next. She says she’s going to take a nap, but I blinked and missed it! The author really keeps you going. And the tension… first, it’s all about Catherine’s death, then other issues push it higher and higher and you think you might be the next one to rant and rave if something doesn’t happen to give you a break. You expect one thing, but that’s not what happens…

And here begins the reveal…

Amy and Catherine had planned a trip to Paris. It was going to be such great fun. But life had other plans for Catherine. For three years, Amy nursed her and stayed by her side while Catherine died of cancer. Then Amy grieved her. Her husband, William, eventually stopped understanding and there was a distance between the couple. Amy quietly packed her bag and went to Paris by herself to see if she could find some light in this world in the City of Light.

She makes a small group of friends in Paris. First is Margaret, who offers her a home with her in her small apartment. Margaret’s daughter, Sophie, has been missing for two years, so there is room for Amy. Manu gives Amy a job working with him delivering prepared foods. He was Sophie’s boyfriend. And then there is Herve. He is just a friend, and he is very quirky, twitchy you might say. In the end, he is unmasked, but Amy benefits briefly from it.

Amy had come to Paris for just a brief visit, to clear her head so she could put her life back on track. But somehow, her life seems to have taken a new path here in Paris and doesn’t want to return to America. But William, who hasn’t contacted her in all this time, is now in Paris to see her.

Or is he. Amy follows him on his first day in Paris and he does nothing but shoots selfies in front of tourist spots! Why isn’t he trying to contact her? When they do get together the next day, he’s acting rather jumpy. Then she finds part of the answer – a picture of a young woman holding a baby’s sleeper in blue. So William is having an affair and his lover has gotten pregnant with a baby boy, it seems. He’s not here to take her home, he’s here to end it. And he had the nerve to make love with her! He does do a double take when he realizes Amy is very pregnant by him.

Amy returns to Margaret’s apartment to find it in an uproar. Sophie, Margaret’s daughter has returned after two years. She had been seeing Manu before she disappeared and he’s hovering over her now as Sophie throws Amy out of the apartment, claiming her territory as her own again. Amy stays with Manu a night and then with Herve. Each night is a unique experience. Sophie has a previous claim on Manu, so Amy keeps her own feelings for him to herself, but it’s difficult after just being tossed over by her husband and his lover, then being tossed out of her cozy spot by the daughter she was standing in for. And the situation goes from bad to worse as Margaret is taken ill by the stress.

What is Amy to do now? Her husband has someone else. Her room is now occupied by its former resident, who is even using her wardrobe! No one seems to care about Amy. But that’s not true. Someone does care about Amy a great deal and is just waiting for things to slow down a bit to let her know. You’ll get your HEA in this one.

Highly recommended.