A Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon Charts bestseller.
From the bestselling author of The Beekeeper’s Promise comes a gripping story of three young women faced with impossible choices. How will history – and their families – judge them?
Paris, 1940. With the city occupied by the Nazis, three young seamstresses go about their normal lives as best they can. But all three are hiding … normal lives as best they can. But all three are hiding secrets. War-scarred Mireille is fighting with the Resistance; Claire has been seduced by a German officer; and Vivienne’s involvement is something she can’t reveal to either of them.
Two generations later, Claire’s English granddaughter Harriet arrives in Paris, rootless and adrift, desperate to find a connection with her past. Living and working in the same building on the Rue Cardinale, she learns the truth about her grandmother – and herself – and unravels a family history that is darker and more painful than she ever imagined.
In wartime, the three seamstresses face impossible choices when their secret activities put them in grave danger. Brought together by loyalty, threatened by betrayal, can they survive history’s darkest era without being torn apart?
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Danger, romance, sisterhood, bravery, love and family. One story line set in Paris during the war, another set in the same apartment in contemporary times, merge together as the story is revealed and the two modern women learn about their grandmothers’ dramatic lives. All this set against the fascinating world of haut couture in Paris, then and now. Emotional and thrilling, their adventures seem so real I had tears in my eyes, and had to stay up all night to discover the ending. My favorite by Fiona Valpy, so far.
A hauntingly beautiful story. This book was completely immersive and really transports you back through time. It’s rare I read wartime stories that actually depict everything how it actually was rather than romanticizing everything. Very down to earth book with relatable characters.
A really amazing tale of three women and their work in the Parisian resistance. Beautifully written from the perspective of those in WW2 and a descendent of one of the women. The characters are well developed and the story is realistic and unbelievable.
I love books like this. I love how it is both historical and flips to now. I loved how the connections come together.
A good read, but I preferred the historical parts of the story to the present day sections. Could have ended sooner than it did, but still a pretty good read.
This phenomenal WW II story by the talented Fiona Valpy follows the stories of three seamstresses in occupied Paris who are all harboring potentially deadly secrets.
WARNING: The scenes at Dachau can feel overwhelming. At the same time, they remind us how the human spirit can overcome the worst of crimes against other humans. Harriet, recently graduated from university and feeling as if she fits nowhere, goes to Paris in search of her roots. Her personal loss–her parents’ divorce and her mother’s subsequent suicide when she was a teenager–provide a beautiful contrast with the three young girls who risk their lives as Resistant fighters in 1941-45. Their work as seamstresses in one of Paris’s haute couture houses juxtaposes the typical starving, freezing French women with the Nazi wives and mistresses who willingly pay to dress beautifully. The three girls’ relationship to Harriet seven decades later is as intricate as the dresses they labored over in the cold and heat of a war-torn city. In the end, despite the horrific and realistic scenes, this is a story of hope and love.
I highly recommend this book if you enjoy historical fiction but be prepared to come nose-to-nose with pure evil. Set in WWII occupied Paris, it details the history of three dressmakers for a couture fashion house as uncovered by the granddaughter searching to learn more about her own history. I marveled at their courage as they helped the resistance and wondered would I have the courage to do the same.
When I saw this was going to be a ‘war book’ I very nearly put it down – I’m so glad that I didn’t! While the descriptions of the concentration camps and the lengths humans will go to hurt other humans (in the past and present) are unsettling, this is a story of how the love of friends and family and even a shared love of fashion and fabrics can link people and create strong bonds of friendship.
There was a dissonance with the coincidence of Harriet meeting Mirielle’s granddaughter, and Harriet’s overall story was not particularly strong, but I enjoyed the entire book despite that.
I guess I’m living at the right time because there are lots of books about World War II and I’m very interested in that. I really enjoyed this one because it was a little bit different and involved stories from different perspectives and talked about French fashion in that time and then how people eventually ended up in concentration camps or prisons. It kept my attention and I breezed right through it and I would definitely recommend it to someone, especially if they are interested in that period of time.
We are in Paris, the 1940s, the city under German rule. We meet three young ladies who are seamstresses for a fairly small couture house, working on the ground floor of the building at 12 Rue Cardinale, Paris, and live in rooms at the top, the fifth floor of that building. Claire, Vivienne, and Mireille are young women trying to make a difference in their own ways, improve life for those living under German rule through that time.
67 years later, in 2017, Harriet Shaw is the American granddaughter of Clair. Harriet has had a very rough life. When she was quite young her parents divorced. Her father re-married too soon and started a new family. Harriet’s French mother, Felicity, can’t seem to pull herself out of a massive depression, and when Harriet is in her early teens, Felicity commits suicide. Harriet has to go and live with her father and his new family, feeling unwelcome and somehow guilty. That feeling is intensified when her Dad quickly sends her off to boarding school. On her senior trip to Paris, she brings the photo of those three girls standing in front of 12 Rue Cardinale and finds the building, not much changed in appearance but currently housing ‘Agence Guillement, Relations Publiques’. At the conclusion of her university schooling, she applies to that public relations firm for an apprentice position. After her third application, the Director of the firm hires Harriet for a one-year apprenticeship, paying only minimum wage but offering an apartment – on the fifth floor. The first person Harriet meets as she begins her new life, moving into the same building that housed her Grandmother Claire is Simone, granddaughter of Mireille. Also living on the fifth floor, and working for the public relations firm. Simone will be able to help Harriet run down the history of her French family, but when she offers that assistance, she cautions Harriet to be sure that she really wants to find out what happened in her grandmother’s life during the war. It gives her pause, but she decides that before she can find out who she is, she will have to find out the history of the lives of her Grandmother Claire and her Mother Felicia. Just the way that advice is given makes her afraid that there is something in Claire’s history that would be painful to bring to light. but she simply has to know about the war and the actions of Claire that might have set into motion the emotions that took her mother away. Because it has recently been discovered that intense stress or actions creating PSTD can change your DNA, passing on to your children that vulnerability when faced with stressful situations. And Harriet would never marry, never have children if she is going to live out her mother’s life – and death. She would never want to put those she loved in the kind of painful existence that she suffered through her whole life.
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Notes
“The Dressmaker’s Gift” by Fiona Valpy is a book about the resilience of the French people (in particular three young women employed as seamstresses) during the occupation by the Nazis during WWII. I am not one of those people who has stopped reading WWII novels because the topic has become “hum-drum” for them. I still read them because of my interest in that time period although it still brings tears to my eyes. I am always shaken up by the atrocities which lie in the hearts of evil people; those who have forgotten how to be compassionate and kind. This story is tragic on the one hand because of the subject matter. However, it is also full of hope because some people did survive the death camps. I don’t know if I would be one of them.
It was good! There were a couple places where I forgot whose story was being told and had to go back to the chapter heading (that’s what I get for reading well into the middle of the night), but overall it was great! I was hooked, I loved how everything came full circle, and it was both enjoyable and deep. The author did well touching on such a sensitive time in history as well as such a sensitive issue in today’s time.
The story is told by the granddaughter of one of 3 dressmakers in Nazi occupied Paris. The granddaughter is trying to find her roots and has had difficulties of her own but the stories of the two generations could have been separate stand alone books. But the weight of the story is on the 3 young dressmakers, their friendship, the difficulties they confront and their part in the French Resistance which for me was no longer just a political movement but people who risked their lives for a higher cause. After 6 of us read the book I asked if anyone thought they would have joined the Resistance and there was a very long silence.
The writing is beautifully descriptive, I liked most of the characters, and the plot was believable and sensitively done. I enjoyed it very much.
This was a beautiful story of self discovery, loyalty, and discovering ones family history. This story reminded me a touch of the Alice Network but with more of family element to it. I loved the strong female characters within this story, especially shining a light on those everyday heroes from WWII. Claire and her friends were seamstresses by day and working with the resistance at night. If you like either historical fiction or women’s fiction, you’ll enjoy this one.
This book is told in a nonlinear way, going from current day (2017) to the early 1940s and is told from the POV of multiple people. At times the past could get a little confusing as to which POV was talking, since it changed perspectives within a chapter without a clear differentiation.
While the technique of a granddaughter searching for her family’s history is nothing new, the plot here was fresh and kept me riveted, not wanting to put it down. Connecting the present with the past, Harriet Shaw finds the truth about her grandmother’s work with the Resistance in occupied Paris, while learning the truth about her mother and herself. Both past and present seen thru the lens of Paris Couture. An action-packed, suspenseful read about brutality and inhumanity versus courage and grace and the love that heals.
Not my usual theme,but it hooked me from the begiinning.
Was a great story that told of the struggles of common people during WW11 and how it affected emotions of future generations.
I had been searching for a novel to read that wouldn’t leave me with nightmares. So many wonderfully skilled writers with the power to scare me through to Wednesday! The Dressmaker’s Gift opens in Paris, one of the best cities in the world, and then took me back to its World War II life. The story is suspenseful and the writer’s craft at the highest level. I’ll be looking for more by Fiona Valpy.