First published 2012
Rose Bazelet barricades herself in the basement of her family house on rue Childebert as demolition crews tear down the neighborhood around her. Napoleon III has ordered Baron Haussmann to transform Paris into a modern city, and hundreds of homes must fall. While her neighbors pack up and move away, Rose plants herself in the cellar and refuses to budge. She writes daily letters to Armand, her dead husband, describing the chaos above and the memories that fill each room. The sounds of destruction creep closer each day, but Rose holds her ground. Through her correspondence with Armand, she confronts a truth she has carried for three decades. As the walls of old Paris crumble, Rose must decide whether to surrender her past or fight for what remains of the world she knew.
Genres: fiction, family, romance, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 19th-century
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Paris, Rue Childebert
Period: 19th-Century
222 pages · Hardcover · St. Martin's Press