This is a very passionate story that is full of love for one another in a time when the world was ruled by hate. The novel moves between Iris, wanting to know who she is in the 60s and war-torn France and Cornwall. This story is a page-turner, a book that is hard to put down. Highly recommended.

This is a really fantastic read. Poignant and moving with brilliant characters. Very well written. Highly recommended.

A heartbreaking but lovely historical fiction set in France and England during WWII. The story follows the lives of Nora, an Englishwoman, and Sabine, a Frenchwoman, and how their lives intersect. It all wrapped together beautifully at the end.

Many thanks to Storm Publishing and NetGalley for my ARC!

The Last Train from Paris is a detailed fast paced story that has a slowly revealed plot and has been separated into five parts between 1938-1945 and 1964.

Greenwood has researched the aftermath of WW1, as well as mentioning WW2. The writing style has a mixture of description and dialogue with titled chapters for easy navigation. Even as the story became predictable after hearing the characters from different timelines tell their stories.

The character development of The Last Train from Paris gives the reader a brief background about the characters. The characters are relatable and realistic with their own personalities and mannerisms.

When Iris finds out from her her certificate of adoption that she was born in France 1939, she researches everything she can. Coming across pictures, accounts of the horrors and suffering of the survivors chilled her to the bone. Sensing her needs her mother, who had always protected and supported her gave her a biscuit tin filled with memories to look through...

Sabine shares a small home in Paris with her husband Emil, who is starting a journalist career, as well as being a novelist. They have little money and are hoping to wait before starting a family, yet after 6 months of marriage Sabine finds herself expecting a child...

Nora is an aspiring chief working in a french restaurant in London. After meeting Sabine at a lecture about English chef Rosa Lewis, Nora inquires about chef's training courses in Paris that are suitable for women. She decides to take the risk and combines the small inheritance left by her grandmother and her own savings to pay for the expensive course...

Overall I feel that The Last Train from Paris has captured the emotion and desperation of the characters in a time of war. I was able to connect with Sabine on more than one occasion and felt that the story gave a perfect amount of closure...

I would suggest reading The Last Train from Paris to people who enjoy reading historical fiction and dual timeline novels, based around WW2, as it is a character driven story about family, friendship, sacrifice and reunion.

This review is being posted as part of the The Last Train From Paris blog tour hosted by Rachel’s Random Resources.
The Last Train From Paris is the latest compelling novel from historical fiction author Juliet Greenwood. It’s been a while since a historical fiction book has truly made me cry but this gut-wrenching story had me sobbing throughout.
Our story is told through a dual-timeline third-person multiple POV narrative, alternating between Iris’ perspective in 1964 and Nora and Sabine’s perspectives between 1938 and 1945. The two timelines work beautifully together in progressing the story, with tension created through us learning things in Iris’ chapters which have not played out yet in our wartime chapters. All of the wonderful settings truly came alive on the page and the perfectly-paced narrative explores thought-provoking themes such as sacrifice, mother-daughter relationships, love, adoption, friendship, separation and revenge.
All of the characters in The Last Train From Paris were beautifully complex and our protagonists were all wonderful strong female characters who demonstrated such tenacity and strength throughout the story. The story was a beautiful ode to the love of both biological and adoptive mothers, with Sabine forced to make a heartbreaking decision in the best interests of her daughter and Nora taking on another women’s child and loving her as her own. The primary antagonist in the story Karl Bernheim was also fantastically written and a truly vile piece of work who made my blood boil whenever he appeared.
The section focusing on Nora fleeing France when Europe found itself on the brink of war and catching the last train from Paris (hence the book’s title) and last ferry to Dover was incredibly powerful and had me on the edge of my seat. Juliet Greenwood explains in her author afterword that this was based on the real experiences of her Mum who, like our character Nora, had been studying in Paris when war broke out and was forced to hurry back to England before the borders closed. The chapters exploring Sabine’s story as her family were forced to flee their home on the outskirts of Paris and join the millions of refugees travelling south with nothing more than they could carry were also incredibly powerful and based on the true experiences of the friends and relatives of Juliet Greenwood’s mother. Using genuine accounts as inspiration in this way really made the story feel so authentic and helped the narrative to perfectly capture the emotions the characters would have been feeling. The story was clearly meticulously researched to support the genuine accounts used as history just seeped through the pages.
I found the exploration of 1930s attitudes to disability to be a really interesting aspect of the story. The despicable Nazi eugenics policies which saw the murder of thousands of mentally and physically disabled children are infamous and this is explored through Sabine’s daughter Violette who is born with a cleft lip. Sabine has to make heartbreaking decisions to protect her daughter from the Nazi regime and this sets up our story.
Overall, The Last Train From Paris is a really powerful and compelling piece of historical fiction and has been one of my standout historical fiction books of 2023. It is a story which is equally as heartwarming as it is heartbreaking and it’s truly going to stay with me for a long time.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I have posted an extended review on my blog www.yourschloe.co.uk and the post is linked.

This book’s plot took a turn that even I hadn’t anticipated, which heightened the mystery and suspense.
I love a good mystery and mind actively starts plugging in facts to fill the gaps.
A tin of old letters and snapshots from WWII leads to unending questions for Iris who lives in Cornwall.
What she is told by her mother shocks and stuns her.
The story is well crafted and flows well. There are tough decisions made and actions that forever change lives.
But the ending brings those story shards back together to complete the fractured picture.

Set in Paris, a beautiful city day and night, during World War 2, The Last Train from Paris is an engrossing, and intriguing dual-time thought-provoking novel. Loved the awesome writing style of the author and the pace at which the sequences take place.

1964: Iris wants to know who she is, she was visiting her adopted mom Nora at St Mabon's Cove, Cornwall as she is visiting from London. She could ask questions to her mum as she held her certificate of adoption she had first seen. No mother, No father, No hint of who she might have been, or even an exact place of birth. It seemed such a vague statement of her existence in the copy she had in her hands. She was born in 1939 the year war was declared in a country that is unlike Cornwall. She had always known that she was adopted but seeing Mum Nora and Dad named on an unofficial document had made it real. The adoption certificate was dated 1950, five years after the war had ended.

1939: Sabine and Nora become friends through letters, they never met until in German-occupied France just before the war broke out. Sabine was a Journalism student who lived in Colmar. Nora leaves London to study in Paris to become a chef as her father has finally been persuaded. A heavily pregnant Sabine with her husband Emil who was working in the enemy country Germany, gives birth to twins - Valerie and Violette in Paris. Sabine deeply loved her twins and she could do anything, fight anyone to keep her children safe. Violette had to get an operation done as the child had a disability when she was born. As things in Europe looked uncertain where war was inevitable. Sabine gives Violette to Nora as she leaves Paris and goes back to London on a train and thereafter on a ferry boat as the war is prepared to break out in France.

In the midst of intense war, Nora's bravery and heroic actions, Sabine fleeing Paris forcefully and Nora when she finds herself on a ferry in the middle of the channel are entangled with how Violette grows up to become Iris. The whole story revolves around how these characters survive and struggle through war-torn Europe.

Thanks to Netgalley and Rachel Random Resources and Storm Publishers for an advance digital copy for my honest review.

Novel Nerd Blog: https://smithareading.blogspot.com/

This is such a powerful and emotional book. It is beautifully written, and flows seamlessly. The description in this book is so vivid, heartbreakingly so. Set in Paris, it’s the story of Nora, an English woman, and Sabine who is French. Their lives become linked in a way they never could have imagined as World War II changes everything, for everyone. The tension, the uncertainty and the fear are all portrayed beautifully by the author, as the characters realise what the War will mean for them and their loved ones. Nora manages to get on the last train from Paris in the hope of getting home to England, and Sabine is faced with a mother’s worst nightmare. She makes a decision that will have massive impact on her loved ones, and breaks her heart.
In 1964, Iris is in Cornwall, visiting her Mum, Nora, and her Dad. Family secrets are revealed, along with the reasons for them, and Iris finally learns the truth.
This is a beautiful story, full of love, hope and courage, even on the darkest days. It’s harrowing, as war is, and the brutality shown is breathtakingly cruel. However, the will to live, to survive, and to endure is portrayed in such a way that it hurt my heart, it’s so powerful. I loved it, and wholeheartedly recommend

WWII - check

Paris - check

Dual Timeline - check

Surprising amount of food being mentioned - check!

Iris has long wanted to discuss her origins with her adopted mother but it has always been a taboo subject. However, she is now determined that she is going to find out the truth. Her mother gives her a tin which contains letters and a postcard of the Eiffel Tower which has just one word on it - forgive. And it seems that her mother is finally ready to talk to her about the past, about her past. How exactly did a baby born in France during early WWII end up growing up in picturesque Cornwall?

Sabine and Nora first meet in 1938. Sabine is a French journalist and Nora is an English woman with a passion for cooking. They strike up a friendship through letters, with Sabine encouraging Nora to follow that passion and enrol in a French cooking class (hence the unexpected foodie content!) It is 1939 and despite the rumours of war coming, Nora decides to ignore the concerns of her family and travel to Paris to undertake the course, which she loves. In her previous role working at a prestigious hotel she usually is relegated to peeling potatoes while the male cooks do all the real cooking.

Sabine is excited to have her friend nearby, until she is suddenly forced to move to her husband's home town of Colmar in the Alsace region, an area which has at various times been in French and German hands. Her husband who is also a writer who is trying to sell his novel, needs to take over the running of the family shoe making business and as his wife, Sabine has no choice but to accompany him, despite being heavily pregnant. This means sharing a house with his overbearing mother, and meeting his odious friend Karl.

With her husband now absent, Sabine is forced to make a heartbreaking choice in order to save her babies. And Nora is the only person who can help her, despite the challenges this will cause in her own life. And amid the chaos of ware, things happen that end up having lasting consequences for all concerrned.

When we are sitting in the comfort of our own homes, it is really hard for us to imagine what kind of difficult choices we might have to make if we found ourselves caught up in the beginning of a major conflict. And yet, you only have to watch the news to see people who are having to make those kinds of choices every day.

There are so many layers to this book. The characters have to make so many choices just to have the best chances of surviving, and in the course of the book they are exposed to major incidents which would be difficult to deal with just one of, let alone everything that happens. There is also the emotional impacts of realising that the people that you love are not necessarily who you thought they were.

I thought I would share a short quote which caught my attention:
"The truth is, the only way anyone truly wins a war is just to survive. Nothing more. Just live through it to build a future once the madmen have obliterated each other, as they always do."

Both Sabine and Nora were great characters to read about, and there were moments where I was holding my breath to see what was going to happen next.

I had heard of Juliet Greenwood before I agreed to read this book, but I had never read any of her books before. This is something that I will be rectifying as soon as I can.

This was a great read!

I am sharing this review with the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

Thanks to the publisher, Netgalley and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy! Check out more stops on the tour to see what other people thought too.

Rating 4.5/5

I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are my own opinions.

A book about a woman's unknown origin twisted with the current reality with her adopted mother. The Last Train from Paris has a different story to tell about WW2, one which I haven't read yet. (Trust Me I have read a lot.) I highly recommend this emotion filled novel for anyone who is intrigued by WW2 fiction and how it affects generations after it.

The biggest mistake with this story is that I started reading it before sleep...There was no sleep in most of the night because I had to read this beautifully, gut-wrenching story. I enjoyed it from the start till the very end.

After taking a break from the heavy reading of historical fiction I've found myself back in the thick of things reading it again. I was utterly unable to put this down once I started it reading it in a little over a day.

This has all I'm looking for in a book and the story took my breath away. An engrossing time-slip novel I was pulled into the war and the effects it has on everyone long after it is over.

While the men are bravely off fighting the war it's the women who have the bravery on the home front even making selfless sacrifices just to keep their children safe. I love the author's books; they are realistic and relatable.

Gripping! As the book progresses the mystery unfolds with surprising twists and turns. All the characters are great but the women with their strength and resilience are the stars. This is one that will be remembered.

I was given a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.

While St Mabon’s Cove in Cornwall might be an escape from the city for Iris, it also provided a much needed refuge for her mother at a time when she most needed it – and the box of letters, cards and other memories that her mother shares with her provides the clues to the compelling story that then begins to unfold.

1939 and the possibility of war on the horizon, but Nora has managed to scrape together the money needed to take a cookery course in Paris – working in the kitchen of a French restaurant in London, there’s little possibility of advancement, and she’s determined to achieve her dreams. And she has a Parisian friend – Sabine, a journalist she met briefly at an event in London, to hopefully call on when she needs to. But her stay is curtailed as the threat increases – and a split-second decision at the railway station as she catches that last train for the coast takes the lives of both women in differing and unexpected directions, with considerable challenges for them both, along with the legacy of that life-changing moment.

The book follows the ensuing lives and experiences of both women – Sabine’s heartbreaking story of survival in war-torn France, and Nora’s own difficult decisions following her return to England. I desperately want to tell the full story, but I really must allow you to discover it for yourself – this really is historical fiction at its very best, a story of human endurance and immense courage, of love and kindness but also of tragedy and betrayal, and always with that faint glimmer of hope.

The characterisation is simply superb, both women showing immense bravery and resilience – it’s a story of love and loyalty, heart-breaking and emotional, set against a perfectly drawn backdrop of the evil and horror of wartime and its impact on the ordinary people caught up by it. And it’s also an all-consuming story about the unbreakable bonds between women – grandmothers, mothers and daughters – and the shared love that sustains them.

The parallel wartime stories are drawn back into the present by Iris’ questions prompted by the box’s contents – the full truth slowly emerging, with key moments that certainly moved me to tears. The whole book is so very cleverly constructed and quite beautifully written, a totally compelling read that I found impossible to set aside – and, when I sometimes just had to, I couldn’t stop thinking about the individuals at the story’s heart.

This was such a powerful read – tremendously moving, entirely unforgettable, one of my books of the year, and I really couldn’t recommend it more highly.

A heartbreaking tale of history. I really enjoyed this story. It was sad yet heartwarming in ways. It really hit home as this is something that probably did happen all those years ago and it’s just really sad.

It kept my attention throughout and the characters had so much depth you felt you really knew them.

A good read.

As more people forget the lessons of history, this novel spotlights the tragedies from World WarII in France and England. Told in two time periods, we first meet Iris in Cornwall in 1964, a young woman about to hear the truth of her adoption and her background. The other part of the book takes place in 1939, as the Nazis start to invade Europe, with their barbaric ways. Not only were Jews and Gypsies targeted, but children and people with disabilities were thought to be dispensable and should be killed. When Sabine gives birth to twins in France, one has a cleft palate. Sabine is petrified her daughter would be taken. As the story unfolds, the role of both kindness and hope exits alongside the horrible actions during the war. Nora is the other key character, a young Englishwoman studying the culinary arts in Paris,where she meets Sabine, and their futures become entwined forever. Recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

After a great deal of mystery murders, I got a book of a different genre. A family story. There was a great deal of death and destruction because it was set at the beginning of WWII but it was a warm, loving story nevertheless.

It was one of those things which just has to be fate. Nora was from Cornwall never stepped out of her home town, but with a passion to be a lady chef which was almost an impossible feat at the time. Nora and Sabine met briefly. Sabine was newly married, expecting a baby. By the time she had the twins, war was imminent and everyone was fleeing Paris. To complicate matters one of the twins was born with a harelip which Sabine’s husband found abhorrent. It was also beginning to be known what the Nazis did to the disabled. In a wrenching last minute decision, Sabine thrusts Violette to Nora to take back to England and to possible surgery there.

Fast forward to 1945 Sabine has undergone immense suffering leaving her home, being refugees and barely escaping with her life. Nora has forged a life for herself as Mrs Herridge and Violette is cured, well and happy.

The reunion and retelling of the story in its entirety takes place in 1965 both girls grown up, able to handle the situation well. It ended well.

4.5 stars! The Last Train from Paris was the first book that I have had the pleasure of reading by Juliet Greenwood. It was a compelling historical fiction novel that was based partially on the author’s own mother’s experiences just before World War II and the Nazis took control of Paris. Juliet Greenwood’s mother had studied French near Paris when she was seventeen years old. Growing up listening to her mother’s memories of that time, helped authenticate Nora’s character that Juliet Greenwood created for The Last Train from Paris. Author, Juliet Greenwood, included strong female characters in her book who were intelligent, insightful, driven and passionate. Her research for The Last Train from Paris was impeccable and it was so well written. The chapters alternated between the war years of 1938 to 1945 and 1964. It took place in Paris, France and Cornwall, England. The Last Train from Paris grabbed me from the first page and did not let go until the satisfying ending.

Nora and Sabine met briefly at a lecture but felt a strong connection immediately. Sabine lived in Paris where she practiced journalism and was newly married. Nora aspired to become a French chef and wanted more than anything to learn from Paris’s best teachers. Sabine had heard about a cooking course that was to be taught by one of Paris’s best chefs and wasted no time in sending Nora the information. Nora convinced her parents to let her attend the school. Just as Nora was to arrive in Paris, Sabine and her husband had received some tragic news and were forced to depart from Paris and travel to her husband’s childhood home. Sabine had recently discovered that she was pregnant. The timing was not ideal. She imagined her family helping her through the birth and then providing child care for her newborn child. Now Sabine would be forced to rely on her husband’s mother for support. She wished they did not have to leave Paris but her husband had given her no choice. Sabine would cross paths with Nora after she had given birth. With the advancement of the Nazis on Paris, Nora was warned that she had to leave Paris immediately even though her course was not complete. Nora boarded the last train out from Paris. It would be a dangerous journey back to England. Sabine rushed to the train station just as Nora was boarding the train. She had mere seconds to make the hardest decision of her life. Sabine knew she had no other choice. The choice Sabine made that fateful day in Paris would haunt her for years. Sabine’s choice that she made that day impacted both women in ways they could never had imagined.

In 1964, Iris had come home to the cottage in St. Ambon’s Cove in Cornwall. Iris had grown up there and had had an idyllic childhood. She was living in London now since she had completed her studies. Iris had such fond memories of her life with her mother and father at St. Ambon’s Cove. Her mother was an accomplished chef and her father helped to locate and interrogate Nazi war criminals. Iris had known that she was adopted. Her parents shared this information with Iris when they felt she was old enough to understand. Why was her mother so hesitant, though, to share the details surrounding her adoption and birth mother with her. Every time Iris brought it up her mother managed to change the subject and avoid talking about it. Iris was determined to find out the details today. She would be insistent. To Iris’s surprise, her mother did not evade her questions this time. Rather she handed Iris a biscuit tin and told her to open it and look at the contents. Inside were photographs, letters and a postcard that displayed a picture of the Eiffel Tower. On the back of the postcard we’re the words, “Forgive Me”. Iris’s mother knew that Iris was ready to learn about her past. Over the next several hours, Iris learned everything she had longed to learn about herself, her mother and her biological mother.

The Last Train from Paris by Juliet Greenwood was gripping and inspirational. I cried, I smiled, I feared and I loved every moment of it. Juliet Greenwood created such strong and admirable female characters in The Last Train from Paris. Both Nora and Sabine were faced with hard, almost impossible decisions and yet they embraced them and did their best to live with them. The Last Train from Paris touched on choices, trust, instinct, friendship, sacrifice, loss, displacement, love, courage, revenge, separation and betrayal. It was so well written. I enjoyed how past and present alternated flawlessly. The Last Train from Paris also portrayed the desperation and fear of the Parisian people desperate to escape Paris and the occupation of the Nazis. I really enjoyed reading The Last Train from Paris and being transported to the streets of Paris and the seaside of Cornwall. I highly recommend it.

Thank you to Storm Publishing for allowing me to read The Last Train from Paris by Juliet Greenwood through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Last Train From Paris by Juliet Greenwood is a powerful, heart wrenching historical novel.
The book is set over two time periods – 1964 in Cornwall and also in France from 1939-1945. The war years were a terrible time as the Nazis marched into France in 1940. Life went from gay and carefree to fearful and persecuted.
We follow a family as they flee to the South. Even civilians were at risk of aircraft firing on them. Terrible sights were seen along the way. Kind hearts helped where they could. People were determined to survive. “She would fight to tell their stories.”
Nazi ideology infiltrated lives. It could split families as opinions would be divided. Sometimes previously loving family members were brain washed by Hitler, forcing other members to flee for their lives.
The handicapped were in grave danger. It took much courage to keep a baby with a hare lip safe. Sometimes love means letting go. We witness instances of sacrificial love.
There is a beautiful friendship between a young French girl and a young English girl. Both support each other. Their friendship is tested but comes up trumps.
Whilst France was on the frontline of war, Britain was also suffering due to the Blitz. Lives were ripped apart in an instant as we witness the fragility of life.
Cornwall was a breath of fresh air – literally and figuratively. It is in sharp contrast to occupied France.
All the characters were well drawn, likable and realistic. The bravery it took to make impossible choices is admirable.
The Last Train From Paris tells of love and sacrifice. It is a powerful read.
I received a free copy via Rachel’s Random Resources. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.

Set in France and Britan we follow a duel timeline during WW2 and the 1960s. We explore family secrets, heartbreaking decisions, a fight for survival and two mothers love for their children. An incredibly touching story. It does start a little slow however when it picks up, The Last Train From Paris will have you glued to the pages.

I would like to thank Storm Publishing, NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to read this complimentary
copy for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I really loved this book - it was beautifully told and completely gripping. The two stories interwove really well and I was swept up with the characters. Absolutely recommend and would read this author again.