Review: The Paris Affair by Victoria Cornwall*

*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.

Title: The Paris Affair
Author: Victoria Cornwall
Genre: Historical Fiction

Trigger warnings:  War, Cancer, Death Of A Parent, Boating Accident, Death Of A Spouse, Death Of A Child, References To Torture, Guns, War

Rating: ★★★

Born to a French mother and an English father, Charlotte Bray has always felt like an outsider in her small Cornish fishing village. She spends her days on her father’s fishing boat, helping to feed a nation at war.

But the war brings devastation, and it’s not long until it reaches Charlotte’s front door. Her world is rocked and forever changed by tragedy. With nothing left to lose, she accepts a mysterious invitation to work for the War Office as a spy. Nothing is as it seems, and she finds herself in Nazi-occupied Paris with a new identity.

Charlotte begins working under the sombre but handsome Frenchman Pierre Lesieur. But do his allegiances lie elsewhere? With the Gestapo at every corner and networks falling all around her, Charlotte feels danger closing in on her.

And nothing is more dangerous than her growing feelings for Pierre. Charlotte has been taught how to defend herself from the enemy. But not how to protect her heart . . .

The Paris Affair is the latest book from author Victoria Cornwall, exploring themes such as bravery, betrayal and love after loss set against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied Paris.

I’d like to split my review into two as I believe the first two thirds of the story were significantly stronger than the final third.

To start with what I enjoyed about the book, The chapters exploring Charlotte’s SOE training were very interesting and well-researched. I liked her relationship with the girls she trained with, Isabelle and Jeanne, and would be interested to see if Victoria Cornwall plans on exploring their stories in other books, as the little insights we got into their SOE work seemed really interesting.

I also liked the chapters following Charlotte entering France and starting to establish herself in Paris. The setting descriptions were very vivid and made Paris come alive on the page.

Charlotte was a courageous female protagonist who was very likeable. I liked the Cornish fishing village setting the book opens with and the way that fishing gave Charlotte some of the valuable skills that would end up aiding her in her SOE training and then work as an agent in France. I perhaps would have liked her grief at the loss of her father to have been explored in even greater depth though.

I did also like Pierre as a character and although it did take time to warm to him, I can only assume that was the intention as he was written to be a secretive and grumpy character with a complicated backstory. I thought the exploration of his grief following the death of his wife and young child were a real asset to the story, particularly seeing him gradually open himself up to getting romantically and emotionally involved with someone else. One thing I was disappointed with was the fact that his interesting relationship with the Nazis wasn’t explored in the full depth I was craving, particularly as it was given such a prominent reference in the book synopsis.

This next section of the review will contain spoilers. Although I try to avoid this in my reviews it is necessary to explain my point unfortunately.

Unfortunately, around two thirds into the story the narrative started to feel very disjointed. We see Charlotte – or Marie as she is known whilst she is undercover in France - get arrested by the Gestapo and then meet her again one week later when Pierre manages to talk them into releasing her. Skipping past her interrogation and torture whilst imprisoned meant that we lost our connection with her as the protagonist, particularly as her experiences at the Gestapo HQ should have had a marked impact on her character for the rest of the story. It should also be said that she recovered from her interrogation unrealistically quickly. Anyone who has done any research into how the Gestapo treated those they had arrested on suspicion of being SOE agents would know that she wouldn’t be up and well enough to be galivanting around Paris on romantic dates after less than a week. This was a real turning point where it felt like the novel became more about the romance plot than substance, which really missed the mark for me. I think if you are going to include a romantic element in a historical fiction novel of this nature you have to find the line between where it aids the plot and where it just completely takes over from the rest of the story. Unfortunately, it did feel like this was missed in The Paris Affair. It felt like the SOE agent plot was too complex to be competing with the romance – which should ultimately have only been a subplot rather than are the forefront of the story – and it therefore meant that the main story couldn’t be explored in the depth it needed to be. From what I can see of Victoria Cornwall’s other books it seems like the only other book set during the Second World War was set in the UK with the protagonist working on the Homefront and having a romance with a soldier stationed nearby. In that kind of historical fiction novel it is more natural for the romance to be at the forefront of the plot but in setting a book in Nazi-occupied France and having a protagonist as an SOE agent – whose average life expectancy in occupied France was just six weeks – you need to put the action and tension of their work as the primary focus of the story or you risk (as happened in this case) not ultimately doing the story justice.

I did also start to find the plot very predictable at this point, particularly who was betraying their circuit of SOE agents. Everything also became very convenient for Charlotte and Pierre, such as the events as they are trying to escape back to England, so any real tension was really lacking and I did roll my eyes at several points. This was an ultimately disappointing way to end the book as, as I said at the start of the review, the first two thirds of the story were much stronger.

Overall, The Paris Affair was a 3* read for me. Some fans of Second World War historical fiction and historical romances might enjoy it as a relatively easy read but for me it really needed more substance than it had. I do think that Victoria Cornwall has great potential as a historical fiction author without romance needing to be at the forefront of the plot, but a decision ultimately needs to be made as to whether or not action or romance is the primary focus.