Last twilight in Paris

Jenoff's highly anticipated new historical novel centers on the intricate paths of two women during the close of and after WWII. In 1953 England, Louise helps out at a thrift store in her spare time, a respite from her distant husband. While sorting through wares, Louise comes across a necklace from a Paris department store, and is shocked to recognize the charm from a time in her life years earlier, when she volunteered with the Red Cross to bring aid to POWs. As Louise sets off to uncover the mysteries behind the necklace and the lives connected to it, she finds herself forced to revisit ghosts from the past. Alternating with this plot line is the perspective of a young Jewish woman, Helaine, who marries musician Gabriel in Paris in 1939. After the Nazi occupation of France, the two are separated and Helaine is sent to Lévitan, a department store turned satellite camp, where she must hold onto hope to survive. The stakes are high in Jenoff's factually grounded tale, creating a breathtaking novel of love, loss, and inner fortitude.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Best-selling Jenoff's latest, based on an unusual true story, will be avidly requested.

Jenoff (Code Name Sapphire) delivers an artful parallel narrative of an Englishwoman's investigation into her friend's death during WWII, when they both volunteered for the Red Cross in Germany, and a Jewish woman interned in Paris by the Nazis. In 1953, Louise Burns finds a necklace with a heart pendant in a secondhand shop in Henley-on-Thames, and recognizes it as the one acquired by her friend Franny in Germany shortly before she was fatally struck by a car. Louise has always suspected Franny's death was somehow related to the necklace, and after tracing it back to Lévitan, a Paris department store, she travels to France, hoping to track down the necklace's most recent owner. Jenoff alternates Louise's sleuthing with the story of Helaine Weil, a young Jewish woman who defies her parents to marry a musician and winds up imprisoned at Lévitan after the Nazis convert the store to a work camp. As Louise learns of Lévitan's dark history, she uncovers shocking details about the necklace and about Helaine, who gave Franny the necklace before being taken prisoner. Jenoff offers a piercing depiction of Jewish life in Paris under German occupation, and keeps the pages turning with an intriguing mystery. Fans of WWII fiction will be riveted. Agent: Susan Ginsburg, Writers House. (Feb.)