Almost immediately after closing this book, I already missed these characters. Williams, Willig, and White (also known as “Team W”) have crafted a gorgeous tale about the interwoven lives of three truly formidable women, in three different timelines, but all tied together through the illustrious Paris Ritz Hotel.
Aurelie is living with her American born mother at the Paris Ritz during World War I, but Aurelie is French nobility on her father’s side and feels out-of-place in her mother’s world of poets and academics. Through a little bit of trickery and more than a little bit of stubbornness, Aurelie finds herself back at her father’s ancestral estate, and on the wrong side of the front lines. As the Germans move in and begin requisitioning everything from the estate, Aurelie realises she has met one of the German officers before – at one of her mother’s debutante events. While they are on different sides of the war, they grow to see just how much they have in common. But this is wartime, and betrayal seems far more likely than a happy ending.
Daisy was raised by her free-spirited Grandmother in the Paris Ritz, but it is now 1942 and she is married to a French diplomat who is working for the German occupiers. Through her grandmother’s insistence, Daisy begins to help the resistance at great risk to her family and herself. She and the skilled English forger that she begins working with develop deep feelings for each other, but when Daisy is forced to confront dark secrets from her family’s past, she is not left with many choices of what to do next.
Babs is a young widow in the 1960s’. She married her childhood sweetheart, Kit, after he returned from World War II, where he spent time in a German camp. When he came home he had no desire to talk about those days and Babs, afraid of causing him more pain, does not ask for information. She even hides a letter that comes for him from a mysterious woman called “La Fleur.” But shortly after Kit’s death, Babs receives a letter from an American man named Drew whose father also fought in World War II and is now in extremely poor health. His father worked with the resistance and was supposed to meet La Fleur, but when she did not show, Drew’s father was branded a traitor. Drew wants Babs to help him uncover the secrets behind La Fleur and clear his father’s name. So they decide to meet in Paris. At the Ritz Hotel.
All three stories are beautifully told, and the book takes you back and forth between the stories so that they all unravel together. With this storytelling style, sometimes the reader is left wishing for more of one story or skipping ahead to get back to what is going on in one particular timeline, but NEVER in this book! All three tales are so uniquely told and fascinating that I never even thought of skipping ahead to get back to one particular woman’s story. I loved every minute of each woman’s adventure.
Just walking through a bookstore, I don’t think I would ever have picked this book up. I might even have rolled my eyes a little and thought, “ugh…another romance about war time.” But I would have missed out on something incredible! It makes me sad to think I might have missed out on this beautifully written, heart breaking, touching, fulfilling, magnificent book. I am so excited to read more from Team W!
All The Ways We Said Goodbye is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
The New York Times bestselling authors of The Glass Ocean and The Forgotten Room return with a glorious historical adventure that moves from the dark days of two World Wars to the turbulent years of the 1960’s, in which three women with bruised hearts find refuge at Paris’ legendary Ritz Hotel.
The heiress…
The Resistance fighter…
The widow…
Three women whose fates are joined by one splendid hotel.
France, 1914. As war breaks out, Aurelie becomes trapped on the wrong side of the front with her father, Comte Sigismund de Courcelles. When the Germans move into their family’s ancestral estate, using it as their headquarters, Aurelie discovers she knows the German Major’s aide de camp, Maximillian Von Sternberg. She and the dashing young officer first met during Aurelie’s debutante days in Paris. Despite their conflicting loyalties, Aurelie and Max’s friendship soon deepens into love, but betrayal will shatter them both, driving Aurelie back to Paris and the Ritz – the home of her estranged American heiress mother, with unexpected consequences.
France, 1942. Raised by her indomitable, free-spirited American grandmother in the glamorous Hotel Ritz, Marguerite “Daisy” Villon remains in Paris with her daughter and husband, a Nazi collaborator, after France falls to Hitler. At first reluctant to put herself and her family at risk to assist her grandmother’s Resistance efforts, Daisy agrees to act as a courier for a skilled English forger known only as Legrand, who creates identity papers for Resistance members and Jewish refugees. But as Daisy is drawn even deeper into Legrand’s underground network, committing increasingly audacious acts of resistance for the sake of the country – and the man – she holds dear, she uncovers a devastating secret…one that will force her to commit the ultimate betrayal, and to confront at last the shocking circumstances of her own family history.
France, 1964. For Barbara “Babs” Langford, her husband, Kit, was the love of her life. Yet the marriage was haunted by a mysterious woman known only as La Fleur. On Kit’s death, American lawyer Andrew “Drew” Bowdoin appears at her door. Hired to find a Resistance fighter turned traitor known as “La Fleur,” the investigation has led to Kit Langford. Curious to known more about the enigmatic La Fleur, Babs joins Drew in the search, a journey of discovery that takes them to Paris and the Ritz – and to unexpected places of the heart…
