Book Review: The Paris Secret by Karen Swan

Title: The Paris Secret

 Author: Karen Swan

 Publisher: Pan Macmillan

 Date: July 14th, 2016

 Pages: 352

 Format: eARC

 Source: from Publisher for a review

 

Synopsis (from Goodreads): 

Not every door should be opened . . .

With stunning locations and page-turning tension, The Paris Secret is an intense and gripping tale from bestselling author Karen Swan.

Somewhere along the cobbled streets of Paris, an apartment lies thick with dust and secrets: full of priceless artworks hidden away for decades.

High-flying fine art agent Flora from London, more comfortable with the tension of a million-pound auction than a cosy candlelit dinner for two, is called in to assess these suddenly discovered treasures. As an expert in her field, she must trace the history of each painting and discover who has concealed them for so long.

Thrown in amongst the glamorous Vermeil family as they move between Paris and Antibes, Flora begins to discover that things aren’t all that they seem, while back at home her own family is recoiling from a seismic shock. The terse and brooding Xavier Vermeil seems intent on forcing Flora out of his family’s affairs – but just what is he hiding?

Review:

I have a confession to make: I never understood the art.
You can put me infront of the most phrased art work in the world, and I will just stand there, totally confused, forcing my brain cells to see the beauty everyone talks about.
I was never good at art class. I hated it. As an outcome to that, I didn’t particularly enjoy learning about it either.
Therefore, when it comes to art culture, telling you that I am bad would probably be understate.

Main theme of this book is the discovery of an abandoned apartman full of paintings collected during World War II.
You can imagine my reaction when everything about it was divulged, all those masters who stood behind those masterpieces.
Yes, I was confused, but I also tried my best to keep up.

Although the name of this novel is The Paris Secret, Paris is not the only city Karen Swoon took us to in the adventure she created.
We also got to visit London, Vienna  and Antibes.
However, not one of those places, Paris included, was explored enough to make me feel like I was there or like I was learning something new about those places.

Although the art theme was somewhat miss in my case, I found the story behind the main theme pretty fascinating.
All those secrets that were revealed and consequences that came with their revelation gave interestingness to the story.

I only wish that the love aspect took a bigger part of this book.
I also wish that it was observed more and in my opinion stronger love feature is the one ingredient that missed.
I usually don’t crave for love in books I’m reading, but in this particular novel, on page 70, I cought myself hoping there would be love interest already to spice up this (until then pretty boring) book.

From all the characters in the book, there were only two I wanted to know more about: Xavier and Natascha. They were mysterious and I knew from the moment we met them that there is something about them, that there is more then meets the eye. Although their characters have a part in this novel through the whole story, I honestly wish we got the chance to get to know them even better, especially Natascha.

This is the second book by Karen Swan I read. I read her Christmas at Tiffany’s in December 2015 (you can read my review here) and fall in love with it.
Although The Paris Secret didn’t live up to my expectations, I am more then happy to know that Karen wrote many books before this one and I am looking forward to read them.
It exceptionally makes me happy the fact that most of her books are taking part during Christmas or are Christmas themed, because I really, really enjoy reading Christmas stories.

I would recommend The Paris Secret to everyone who loves art, who likes reading stories about secrets and who enjoys reading family prose.