Welcome to First Line Friday!
Today I’m featuring

Until Leaves Fall in Paris by Sarah Sundin.

As the Nazis march toward Paris in 1940, American ballerina Lucie Girard buys her favorite English-language bookstore to allow the Jewish owners to escape. Lucie struggles to run Green Leaf Books due to oppressive German laws and harsh conditions, but she finds a way to aid the resistance by passing secret messages between the pages of her books.

Widower Paul Aubrey wants nothing more than to return to the States with his little girl, but the US Army convinces him to keep his factory running and obtain military information from his German customers. As the war rages on, Paul offers his own resistance by sabotaging his product and hiding British airmen in his factory. After they meet in the bookstore, Paul and Lucie are drawn to each other, but she rejects him when she discovers he sells to the Germans. And for Paul to win her trust would mean betraying his mission.

Master of WWII-era fiction Sarah Sundin invites you onto the streets of occupied Paris to discover whether love or duty will prevail.

From Goodreads

Author Information

Discover more information about Sarah Sundin at: sarahsundin.com

First Line

[Graphic Text]: Paris, France, Wednesday, May 29, 1940 — As long as she kept dancing, Lucille Girard could pretend the world wasn’t falling apart.

My Review

Until Leaves Fall in Paris by Sarah Sundin, takes us to France during World War II.

Readers of As Twilight Breaks will remember Peter Lang’s friend Paul Aubrey. Now widowed, Paul agrees to stay in Paris to feed information to the US Army. However, he must also appear as if he supports Germany, even to his friends. Lucie has lived in Paris most of her life, so when other Americans are leaving, she chooses to stay.

This is a tale of hardship, spies, and fighting back at injustice while trying to stay alive. It’s a deep read while also keeping one’s interest. And it was rather disconcerting to finish this story and then read a headline about the first bombings of Ukraine. War is wretched. In this book, it is not romanticized. Instead, it is about two people who do their best in awful circumstances and come to love each other despite it all.

I hope we can do the same.

---

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Revell. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC guidelines.

Retail Links

*as an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases

*Amazon | BN.com | Indiebound
Goodreads | BookBub

Now it’s your turn.
Pull out the book beside you and leave a comment with the first line.

First Line Friday is hosted by Reading is my Super Power.

---