First published 2019
Blanche Auzello presides over the glamorous Hôtel Ritz in Paris alongside her husband Claude, the hotel director. Famous guests like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Coco Chanel pass through their doors while the couple struggles with their own marital troubles. Then German forces occupy Paris in June 1940 and commandeer the Ritz as their headquarters. Hermann Goëring takes up residence in suites once reserved for royalty. Blanche and Claude must now serve their Nazi occupiers while secretly working for the French Resistance. They spin elaborate deceptions to survive and sabotage the enemy, but their web of lies threatens to destroy their marriage and endanger everyone they love. One final secret shared between husband and wife could bring down both their lives and the legendary hotel itself. This story explores how war forces two people to discover their true character when everything they value hangs in the balance.
Genres: romance, historical-fiction, 20th-century, world-war-ii
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Paris, Hôtel Ritz
Period: 1940
400 pages · Paperback · Delacorte Press
Content warnings: war