The Lost Girls of Paris: A Novel – A NYT Bestseller WWII Historical Fiction Story of Courage and Secrets

Reading The Lost Girls of Paris was a treat. It satisfied my appetite for books on covert and espionage activities during World War II. An added treat was the audio. Along with the script, the audio brought to life the characters with different tones of voices, accents and inflections. This is my first time reading Pam Jenoff; it certainly won’t be my last. She has an engaging style, a smooth and easy flow of captivating prose. Once I started to read her book, it took a great effort to stop to do chores and keep appointments. She is such an excellent story teller. She connects easily and effortlessly with her readers’ imagination. Graphic scenes after scenes glide smoothly and continuously. It’s like watching an interactive movie. One time I’m a ringside spectator to events; at another I’m the voice that is narrating. There were times when I felt as if I was the voice in the head of the characters judging or evaluating their actions. Jenoff’s book presents an interesting prelude. The “instigator” by chance came upon photos of several girls. Intense curiosity and unrelenting persistency opened up a window which unveiled the exploits of these girls. They were involved in extremely dangerous covert activities in France directed by the British during World War II. The discovery of the photos initiated two parallel narratives with a common quest:a search for what happened to the Lost Girls. The first narrative occurs a few years after the events; the second in real time. However, the narratives are like two independent clauses of a sentence. They each can stand alone, but are linked by a common goal. The author allows us into the minds of two protagonist, each grappling with different facts and under different circumstances. The first protagonist is propelled by pure curiosity to uncover the truth about the fate of the girls. There is little to go on, just the haunting photos. But in the second narrative the other protagonist is troubled by mounting evidence that something is awry. Unfortunately, she is blocked by higher authorities to search for the truth. Consequently, victims point to her as their betrayer. The Lost Girls of Paris is a book that captures real life experiences of loyalty, bravery, friendship, and love. It also includes the darker side of humanity:brutality, hate and betrayal. In this book it is women who are prominently described with such experiences. Rightfully so, because women’s role in the two world wars is marginalized. Why is this so? Because it’s a reflection of male dominated societies around the globe. This book is a much needed correction to this. “...the notion of a woman holding a job...” should sensitize readers to bias against females that still exist today. I had a sense of history repeating itself when reading comments implying that women should stay home. In the second narrative we get a broader view of the social problem: “Getting hired had been an uphill battle:she was not just a woman, but a Polish national—and a Jew”. The underlying purpose of The Lost Girl of Paris is not to minimize the advancements made to date in gender equality. But rather to give historical context to the struggles women face. It shows that the attitudes behind their impediment to achieve equality still lingers. Pam Jenoff has done a magnificent job in memorializing the heroic role played by women in World War II. Their contributions to the war efforts deserve to be known and remembered.

Interesting book about girls who volunteer for dangerous mission into France to spy for the Brits. The story begins with a suitcase being deserted In Grand Central Station that is found and opened by a woman. The contents of the suitcase starts the woman on a journey to solve the mystery of events of WWII that had not yet come to light. It was always interesting and often exciting. It was based on a true story that enhances the excitement.

Linda Zagon's review Jan 20, 2019 · edit it was amazing Lindas Book Obsession Reviews “The Lost Girls of Paris” by Pam Jenoff, Park Row Books, January 29, 2019 Pam Jenoff, Author of “The Lost Girls of Paris” has written a captivating, enthralling, suspenseful, intriguing, intense, emotional, edgy and thought-provoking novel. Kudos to Pam Jenoff for her amazing well written novel that vividly describes the characters and landscape in the story. I appreciate the historical research that went into this story. The Genres for this story are Historical Fiction, inspired by true events, Partial Fiction, Suspense and Espionage. The time-table for this story is 1946, and just during the war and after the war. The author describes her dramatic and colorful cast of characters as complex and complicated. It is just after the war, and Grace Healey, now a widow has come to live in New York, while dealing with her loss. A tragic car accident forces her to go through Grand Central to get to work. She trips over a suitcase. Grace sees a name on the outside, and curiosity gets the best of her, and she opens it up. She cuts her hand on something and sees that it is an envelope with pictures that are in lace. They are young women , some dressed in uniforms. Grace tries to see if someone is looking for a suitcase or pictures. Short on time, Grace puts the pictures in her pocket-book and heads for work. Grace learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, the leader of recruited females in England used as spies that were sent to France during the war. Twelve of the women disappeared and never came home. Grace, with the help of her deceased husband’s friend start to look for more information. In the pictures are young women named Marie and Josie, amongst others. They were a group of women operatives working for Britain’s Special Operations during the war, stopping and sabotaging efforts of the German as much as they could. It was extremely dangerous, and could mean these young women’s death. Some handled the radios transmitting information, and others blended into the French countryside getting information. Some would blow up things to stop the Germans. It seems that these women had a friendship and sisterhood that kept them going. They were brave and courageous. Unfortunately their positions were compromised by betrayal from possibly someone in London. Why are these girls missing? Grace wants answers as to who, what and why this happened. This novel has twists, and turns. There is danger, murder, betrayals, and heart-break. This is an intense and edgy novel that I would highly recommend for those readers who enjoy a thought-provoking novel. I received an ARC from NetGalley for my honest review. 6 likes

Good story but very predictable. Not the best historical fiction, but an easy read.

This is a novel in a format similar to Kate Quinn’s “The Alice Network” or “The Huntress” that looks back to a small piece of a big war – in this case WW II – from the perspective of three women. The historical basis of the book is the story of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) unit of British women deployed in France to assist the resistance – principally as radio operators but with involvement in other endeavors as needed. The chapters generally rotate (but not always) from one to another of the three women, two of whom were involved in the later years of the war (1943-1944) and one who was not but who gets involved after the fact (in 1946) in a search for what happened. This facilitates the telling of the tale in a series of flashbacks. The search for what happened is necessitated by the Nazi practice of nacht un nebel (“night and fog”) which appears to have made all the captured operatives disappear without a trace. I found the book got off to a slow start and I had to really suspend disbelief as I could not find enough credible motives for the early actions of two of the women, Grace and Marie, to explain how they each came to be involved in the tale. The motives of the third woman, Eleanor, seem quite clear. That said, the story moves along briskly, and the women have enough ancillary relationships (especially for Grace and Marie) to develop their characters reasonably well. As an aside, the business of Grace’s employer is glimpsed fleetingly but is interesting enough to make one wonder if the author is planning another book about it. As I mentioned in the title of this review, this story is more novel than history and to be fair, the author states as much in her Author’s Note which also helpful cites two recommended books on the real women of the SOE. In summary, this is a pleasant and entertaining read – not as compelling as some others of its genre but still worthwhile

One reason I love reading historical fiction is that it introduces me to lesser-known facts about important events. Such was the case with "The Lost Girls of Paris," by Pam Jenoff. From reading this book, I learned that England had a secret military network of women radio operators and saboteurs who were deployed throughout occupied Europe during World War II. The characters in the novel are fictitious, but the story is loosely based on real events. Jenoff used the voices of three women to tell the story. One was Eleanor, the woman who became the director of the program. She recruited and trained the women, who learned to assemble radios, send messages in code, decipher coded messages, set explosives, find the location of safe houses, receive weapons and ammunition intended to help with the invasion at Normandy, hand-to-hand combat, and how to handle interrogations when captured. Each woman received a cyanide pill to kill herself rather than endure torture. The next point of view was that of Marie, one of the women recruited to work in occupied France because she spoke perfectly fluent French. She was hesitant to participate, because she had a young daughter, whom she had shipped out of London to live with an aunt during the German bombing. However, the pay was too good to resist, because she was barely able to make ends meet after her husband abandoned her. All of the action from 1944 was told by either Eleanor or Marie. At the beginning of the book, the year is 1946 and the narrator is Grace, a young war widow and new resident of New York City who happened upon an abandoned suitcase in Grand Central Station. Impulsively, she opened it and discovered the pictures of 12 women. Although this development was necessary to advance the story, it seemed like a forced technique the author used to explore the secrets of the women spies. That is not to say I did not love the story; only that it seemed very unlikely that Grace would open the suitcase and then become obsessed with the pictures of the young women. She was determined to find out who they were. She was aided by her deceased husband's best friend from college, whom she accidentally ran into in New York. She fought against a budding attraction toward him, but he had access to some records that had been moved to Washington, DC, concerning British spies. The chapters alternated from the viewpoints of Grace, Eleanor, and Marie. I found the chapters narrated by Marie to be the most suspenseful, because she was deployed near Paris, where the Germans were constantly looking for, arresting, and executing spies. The authenticity of the coded messages came into question when not all of the agreed upon protocols and safeguards appeared in every message. Marie worried that her messages were being intercepted or that she might be receiving disinformation. She formed strong attachments to the other "girls," as they were called, and fell in love with a male leader of the secret group. Just before D-Day, things started to go very badly. Only through Grace's investigations in 1946 do readers find out what happened to Eleanor, Marie, and the rest of "The Lost Girls."

WWII nurses do incredible work aiding resistance. Should be required reading when studying history. I will read more by this author.

The amazing true story of Vera Atkins and the women who had served as agents for Special Operations Executive (SOE) under her leadership in Britain during World War II inspired the author to write this historical fiction. Whilst this is first and foremost a fictional novel the author maintained historical fact through her research into the SOE. I was totally unaware of the war efforts of these brave women, who went unheralded for many years after the war, many of whom never came home. The main characters are Eleanor Trigg, the head of the women’s SOE agents, Marie, a British woman who was recruited to the group and sent to Paris, and Grace, an American in New York, who a year after the war had ended, stumbled across an abandoned suitcase which contained photos of 12 British women from SOE, which inspired her to research who they were, and who owned the suitcase. As the story unfolds we see the persistence of Eleanor as she fights for the women’s division of the SOE to continue despite opposition from the male dominated special operations group and the dangers the women faced in their roles in Europe. This novel is a truly enlightening story of bravery and perseverance.

Die Geschichte wirkt nicht sehr authentisch.

This was an excellent choice for our book club. Very well written and it evoked much thought for discussipn. Loved it.

With Pam Jenoff you’re guaranteed a good well researched read. And The Lost Girls of Paris, an historical fiction based on the true heroism of the Special Operations Executives of WWII, didn’t let me down. It’s so fast paced and exciting I finished it in a few days. Anything by Pam Jenoff I would give a well deserved five star rating. The book follows three women agents from different backgrounds brought together through their enrolment in the SEO. Following training they are deployed into their special operation missions across Paris. They are to be under cover operators for London in Nazi occupied Paris. That is, until their roles are jeopardised and their lives threatened when one of their operation transmitters is intercepted by the Germans. A most exciting story of heroism and strength.

Besides being a geat read, you learn of a not well known chapter of WWII. Brave women who were not initially acknowledged. Highly recommend it.

This is an AMAZING book....I loved it....fiction but based on historical fact....the only error was the Queen E 2 ship was only launched in the 1960’s.....Queen Elizabeth the 2nd only became Queen in the 1950’s....that does not detract from this wonderful book, however... It reminded me of the Sarah Helm book....Vera Adkins..A Life In Secrets...The Lost Agents Of The SOE...true story... Also, the Lynne Olsen book...Madame Fourcade’s Secret War...another excellent true story....