The Paris Story: The Evergreen Allure of the City of Light

Author Kelly Bowen’s infatuation with history and weakness for a good love story has made her a devotee to historical romance. Her new book, The Paris Apartment, arrives on April 20 and explores the heartbreaking legacy of secrets that connects a modern woman and her mysterious grandmother. Grab your copy here!

Ernest Hemingway once declared, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you may go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” He wasn’t the only one who felt that way. For centuries, the world has had a long-standing love affair with the City of Light. In 2019, the United Nations World Tourism Organization recorded France as the most visited country in the world, with Paris being one of the most visited cities.

Paris is a city molded by kings and revolutionaries, artists and visionaries, and the list of writers who have immortalized Paris in their literary work is staggering. Irène Némirovsky, George Orwell, and Gertrude Stein are only a few. Alexandre Dumas, Gaston Leroux, and Victor Hugo all wrote about Paris, and their stories continue to live on in multiple contemporary adaptations across stages and silver screens. Centuries and decades on, readers and audiences remain captivated by stories of Paris.

And I count myself among them. Beyond the astounding art and architecture, the unforgettable food and fables, Paris is a place where one can touch history. I’ve stood before the buildings that even today bear the scars of bullet holes and artillery impacts from the years of the occupation. I’ve held guidebooks and brochures, published by the Nazis, recommending the best Parisian sights and entertainments for their occupying troops to visit during the war. So when it came to plotting my upcoming novel, The Paris Apartment, those experiences served as a reminder that the conflict consumed Paris differently than it did other European cities.

Paris was spared the fiery fate of Warsaw and Rotterdam, Stalingrad and London. Instead, it was conquered under a grotesque veneer of civility, an insufficient, deceitful mask over the human tragedy and devastation that the city would still suffer at the hands of the Nazis. While Paris slowly starved to death, Nazis dined on caviar and champagne in the city’s finest restaurants. While its citizens were subjected to unspeakable cruelties, occupying officers entertained themselves with cocktails at the Ritz and plundered the city of its treasures. It was this terrible dichotomy that I chose to address in The Paris Apartment.

My novel will be published in April, not far behind The Paris Library, which tells another incredible tale of brave resistance during the occupation. It will join the ranks of other Paris-based novels, including The Paris Key, Paris by the Book, The Paris Orphan, The Paris Model, The Paris Photo, The Queen of Paris, Three Hours in Paris — enough Paris-titled stories, I like to say, that would fill the aptly titled The Little Paris Bookshop. 

I don’t expect that I will ever tire of immersing myself in Paris.

I’ve always been told that the purpose of a book title is to make sure that the right story gets into the hands of the right reader, and to that end, publishers choose titles with purpose and care. I don’t expect that I will ever tire of immersing myself in Paris, whether it be in Victor Hugo’s revolutionary streets or Charles Belfoure’s hidden spaces. But the wide variety of Paris-set novels also serves as a reminder, especially now, that stories set in this luminous city continue to inspire hope and allow us to believe that no matter the struggle, courage and resilience will always prevail.

If you’d like to delve into the years leading up to and during the Nazi occupation of Paris, here is a short list of some of my favourite (and bestselling) Paris-titled novels to try: