Lost in Paris

Lost in Paris

By: Betty Webb
Narrated by: Hope Newhouse
Listening length: 9 hours, 37 minutes
Release date: April 4, 2023
My review: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Paris, 1922: Zoe Barlow knows the pain of loss. By the age of eighteen, she'd already lost her father to suicide and her reputation to an ill-fated love affair—not to mention other losses, too devastating for words. Exiled from her home and her beloved younger sister by their stepmother, she was unceremoniously dumped in Paris without a friend to help her find her way.

Four years later, Zoe has forged a new life as a painter amidst fellow artists, expats, and revolutionary thinkers struggling to make sense of the world in the aftermath of war. She's adopted this Lost Generation as her new family, so when her dear friend Hadley Hemingway loses a valise containing all of her husband Ernest's writings, Zoe happily volunteers to track it down. But her search for the bag keeps leading to murder victims, and Zoe must again face hard losses—this time among her adopted tribe. If she persists in her reckless quest to find the killer, the next life lost may be her own.

Pulsing with the glamour and excitement of the Jazz Age, Lost in Paris explores a young woman's journey to redeem herself from the heartaches of her past while finding her way forward in tumultuous, unprecedented times.

While I received a copy of this audiobook in exchange for a review, all opinions remain my own. Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the chance to listen to this story.

I love books that take me to a time period before my own. This one took me back to the 1920s in Paris. Zoe is living on her own as an artist. I love this character. She is so independent and resourceful. The way that you learn of her past as she is reliving things happening in her current life, made me feel terrible for her. In a search for a lost manuscript, she comes across a murder scene and from there things just wind up getting more and more complex for Zoe. I loved this story and the way that the mystery played out. Seeing Zoe use her art as a way to work through the things she's going through and eventually even the things that went on back in the US for her. It is beautiful to see different ways that people cope and learn to deal with grief. I enjoyed this book but probably wouldn't re-read it.