Charles's richly detailed plot incorporates historical figures from the American Library and highlights the perils of occupied Paris. Their bond strengthens throughout Lily's teenage years. Charles then skips forward to 1983 Froid, Mont., where seventh-grader Lily befriends her widowed neighbor Odile Gustafson, who teaches her French and reveals secrets about her life in Paris. After Odile learns that her friend Margaret has become enamored with Felix, a Nazi soldier, she tells her fiancé, Paul, a policeman, of Margaret's folly, and is shocked when Paul beats Margaret, leading Odile to leave and volunteer at the American Hospital. During the occupation, the library remains open and delivers books to soldiers. Shortly before the Germans invade France, Odile Souchet, a young Parisian who has adored the American Library in Paris since childhood lands a job there as a librarian. Author NotesĬharles (Moonlight in Odessa) delivers a delightful chronicle of a woman's life in WWII-era Paris and rural 1980s Montana. Odile helps Lily navigate the troubled waters of adolescence by always recommending the right book at the right time, never suspecting that Lily will be the one to help her reckon with her own terrible secret.īased on the true story of the American Library in Paris, The Paris Library is a mesmerizing and captivating novel about the people and the books that make us who we are, for good and for bad, and the courage it takes to forgive. As Lily uncovers more about Odile's mysterious past, they find they share not only a love of language but also the same lethal jealousy. Odile's solitary existence in gossipy small-town Montana is unexpectedly interrupted by her neighbor Lily, a lonely teenager craving adventure. Again and again, they risk their lives to help their fellow Jewish readers, but by war's end, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal. After the Nazi army marches into the City of Light and declares a war on words, Odile and her fellow librarians join the Resistance with the best weapons they have: books. When World War II breaks out, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear-including her beloved library.

Young, ambitious, and tempestuous, Odile Souchet has it all: Paul, her handsome police officer beau Margaret, her best friend from England Remy, her twin brother who she adores and a dream job at the American Library in Paris, working alongside the library's legendary director, Dorothy Reeder. Based on the true World War II story of the American Library in Paris, an unforgettable novel about the power of books and the bonds of friendship-and the ordinary heroes who can be found in the most perilous times and the quietest places.

Book the paris library