A Paris Affair

She thinks love can kill you. It turns out she might be right. The dark and sexy new thriller from the author of The Next Girl and The Strangers We Know. Harper Brown is an expert at picking locks, breaking her way out of car trunks, and talking her way out of trouble. She could run a masterclass on escaping relationships—her record for losing a guy is three minutes flat. She’s addicted to true crime podcasts and is the genius behind a micro-column called “How to not get murdered”. After having her heart broken helping her ex follow his dreams, Harper has moved to Paris to fulfill hers. She’s talked her way into a job as an arts journalist, a stepping stone to her dream role as an investigative journalist. And she’ll do whatever it takes to get there. But then one night she meets the artist Noah X, and everything she thinks she knows is turned upside down. Soon Harper finds herself entangled in a web of lies, hot on the trail of a murderer and the scoop of a lifetime. This is the story that could make her career—if the killer doesn’t catch her first.

Set in the Paris of society women, prostitutes and small-minded bourgeousie, and the isolated villages of rural Normandy that de Maupassant knew as a child, the thirty-three tales in this volume are among the most darkly humorous and brilliant short stories in nineteenth-century literature. They focus on the relationships between men and women, as in the poignant fantasy of 'A Parisian Affair', between brothers and sisters, and between masters and servants. Through these relationships, Maupassant explores the dualistic nature of the human character and his stories reveal both nobility, civility and generosity, and, in stories such as 'At Sea' and 'Boule de Suif', vanity, greed and hypocrisy. Maupassant's stories repeatedly lay humanity bare with deft wit and devastating honesty.

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE The secret daughter of a French politician and a famous actress drops the startling revelation that will shatter her family in this beguiling debut novel of intrigue and betrayal. NAMED ONE OF SUMMER’S BEST BOOKS BY The Skimm • Marie Claire • LitHub • Subway Book Review • Paperback Paris Margot Louve is a secret: the child of a longstanding affair between an influential French politician with presidential ambitions and a prominent stage actress. This hidden family exists in stolen moments in a small Parisian apartment on the Left Bank. It is a house of cards that Margot—fueled by a longing to be seen and heard—decides to tumble. The summer of her seventeenth birthday, she meets the man who will set her plan in motion: a well-regarded journalist whose trust seems surprisingly easy to gain. But as Margot is drawn into an adult world she struggles to comprehend, she learns how one impulsive decision can threaten a family’s love with ruin, shattering the lives of those around her in ways she could never have imagined. Exposing the seams between private lives and public faces, The Margot Affair is a novel of deceit, desire, and transgression—and the exhilarating knife-edge upon which the danger of telling the truth outweighs the cost of keeping secrets.

Nell is determined to find her beloved missing au pair in this vibrant adventure set in, and underneath, Paris. Penelope Magnificent spends as little time as possible with her awful parents—a grocery-mogul father and a fashion-obsessed mother who loves expensive purses more than she does her daughter. But when they mention an important trip to Paris, Nell begs to come along. Paris holds something very dear to her: her old au pair Perrine—Pear—who lives there. Pear used to write to Nell every week, promising to come to her rescue, but recently the letters stopped. With the help of a savvy bellboy named Xavier, Nell sets out from her parents’ ultra-fancy Parisian hotel to find her beloved Pear. But Pear’s old neighbors and coworkers are strangely tight-lipped. And as Nell’s search for the truth takes her and Xavier to some of the darkest, most mysterious parts of the city, a sinister plot comes to light involving the destruction of a cherished—and delicious—part of Parisian life. Food, fashion, and intrigue abound in this delightful caper from the author of The Secret Starling.

This book was a total delight -- Cat Sebastian, author of Two Rogues Make a Right on Best Laid Plaids Have kilt, will travel. Sweden, 1930 Two years ago, Dr. Ainsley Graham proved the existence of ghosts and fell in love—hard to top that. But a trip to Sweden to research at a prestigious university for the summer is nothing to sneeze at, especially since his partner, psychologist Joachim Cockburn, will be teaching alongside him. A change of scenery might be just the thing. Their idyllic trip to Sweden is interrupted by a ghost with a proclivity for rude hand gestures and graphic curse words—and a ghastly history begging to be investigated. Life among the living is complicated, too, by a gruff professor who can’t take his eyes off Ainsley, and an enticing new job offer for Joachim. What starts as an adventurous trip abroad turns into mayhem, murder, and…a magical moose? And everyone—well, perhaps not the moose—is a suspect in the death of the ghostly young man who brings them together to expose secrets, loves lost, and a crime that will shock them all. Kilty Pleasures Book 1: Best Laid Plaids Book 2: Where There’s a Kilt, There’s a Way

An NPR Best Book of 2017 Heiress to the nearly forty-billion-dollar L’Oréal fortune, Liliane Bettencourt was the world’s richest woman and the fourteenth wealthiest person. But her gilded life took a dark yet fascinating turn in the past decade. At ninety-four, she was embroiled in what has been called the Bettencourt Affair, a scandal that dominated the headlines in France. Why? It’s a tangled web of hidden secrets, divided loyalties, frayed relationships, and fractured families, set in the most romantic city—and involving the most glamorous industry—in the world. The Bettencourt Affair started as a family drama but quickly became a massive scandal, uncovering L’Oréal’s shadowy corporate history and buried World War II secrets. From the Right Bank mansions to the Left Bank artist havens; and from the Bettencourts’ servant quarters to the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy; all of Paris was shaken by the blockbuster case, the shocking reversals, and the surprising final victim. It all began when Liliane met François-Marie Banier, an artist and photographer who was, in his youth, the toast of Paris and a protégé of Salvador Dalí. Over the next two decades, Banier was given hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts, cash, and insurance policies by Liliane. What, exactly, was their relationship? It wasn’t clear, least of all to Liliane’s daughter and only child, Françoise, who became suspicious of Banier’s motives and filed a lawsuit against him. But Banier has a far different story to tell... The Bettencourt Affair is part courtroom drama; part upstairs-downstairs tale; and part characterdriven story of a complex, fascinating family and the intruder who nearly tore it apart.

After years of child rearing, chores and career challenges, Valerie feels the sexual heat in her life has cooled. All she wants is a break from her everyday routine - until an unexpected reunion with a man from her past awakens the pure sexual wanting she thought she'd lost.

From Paris to Portland their journey is heartfelt as the search for true love knows no bounds.Daisy has never known the unconditional love of a traditional family. It's not that she doesn't believe in happily-ever-after, she's just not so sure she'll ever find it. But that's the least of her concerns right now-if Daisy doesn't land a job she'll have much more to deal with than just finding work. Fortunately, the stars are aligned, she lands her dream job and quite possibly her dream man too?except he's her boss. And she's totally against office romance for reasons only her mother knows. But she just can't seem to keep away-Alex doesn't believe in love at first sight. He doesn't tolerate employee fraternization of any sort. When they first met, he found her to be delightful and definitely someone he could imagine a future with-but then he'd hired her, she was his subordinate, and she was strictly off limits. At least that's what he's been telling himself?over and over and over and over.