Last Christmas in Paris

"Beautiful story set in such a dark time period. This forbidden love story is compelling and gorgeously written. "

"Kelly"

"Made me nostalgic for the past of the world and my own"

"I read this beautiful book in 3 days. A story entirely told in letter form, what a wonderful premise! I devoured those letters with a hunger unbeknownst to me since Harry Potter. It’s a perfect book. A little slow to begin with, but it’s so easy to fall in love with Tom, Evie, Alice and Will. They felt like friends. Mind you, it’s a book about WWI so it’s harsh reality that as Evie, I believe we should know. <br/><br/>The title is super misleading, don’t read this expecting it to be a Christmas-y book. It’s not."

"I really ought to have a new saying, "If it makes me cry, it gets a 5!" I'm a hopeless romantic, and this one got its hooks in me. I adore Evie and Tom, and I really love epistolary novels! Particularly in historical fiction, it lends a fantastic view into the characters feelings, but through their own words, which of course was the original form of long-distance communication.<br/><br/>I recently visited the WWI National Museum and Memorial in Kansas City (and I highly recommend it to those who have not been) so I knew this would be the year to read this book. I've been putting it off since war novels are so hard for me, but I'm so glad I finally read it. I think it added a bit more to have so recently seen true correspondence from soldiers on the front and viewed a recreation of a trench bunker that you could walk through. It was heart-wrenching to witness, and it doesn't help that I was scarred freshman year of high school with the infamous movie version All Quiet on the Western Front (would NOT recommend that to the empathetically minded such as myself...I'm only now 15 years later attempting to watch war movies).<br/><br/>All that being said, this book is a case for time and place, and I'm so grateful to have been a reader to this fictional journey, and my heart goes out to all those who did not get their happy endings as a result of the terrible war depicted here. But, as Evie would say, courage! There is a light in every dark tunnel, and we must have hope and do our part to make our world a little brighter."

"Easy to read. Sentimental."

"This book was the best I’ve read in a long time. Touching, heart wrenching romance. Loved every second of it and couldn’t put it down. Beautiful historical fiction and a lovely romance. The feeling of war and their circumstances wasn’t downplayed but truly told in great gory detail. The telling of the story through letters I thought would be difficult or become tiresome to read but it was so beautifully written and constructed, you felt privy to their inner thoughts during the war and part of their story all the more. I was at the edge of my seat distraught waiting for those letters, engulfed watching the dates waiting for replies and was so in love with these characters every hardship every longing for reply I felt. I was devastated by Will’s death and the intense feelings they evoked through the telling of their grief and pain for a boy lost so soon senselessly. I felt the power of the war and what it did to young men/boys. I felt the beauty and hope that lived and prevailed through these characters intense friendship, love and hope innate to who they are as amazing humans. I truly was on the edge of my seat cheering them on and praying they would live, be healthy and happy and in love. Such an epic love story and the letters made this an intimate telling of these lovers and held me in suspense for the next correspondence. Loved loved loved every bit of this book and every character so well developed and deeply touching against the absolute horrors of war on the mind and body. I loved how they reminded themselves and the reader to enjoy all the simple pleasures of life and the beauty that can be felt around them and how that can make a world of difference. Also loved that they told the story of broken minds not just bodies that so captured too many and is still taboo. The strong love and hope and beauty and the birds and symbolism they found to help them survive mind and body was amazing and uplifting, heroic, and lovable. "