About the book:

Finding the one is only the beginning…

1954. Zara is fifteen the first time she meets Leon. During a power cut in a small French museum, the two spend one short hour in the dark talking about their love for art, Monet and Paris. Neither knows what the other looks like. But both know their lives will never be the same.

1963. In Paris, Leon no longer believes he will ever find the girl he lost that night. Zara thinks she has already found him. When they meet at an exhibition, they don’t recognise each other – but the way they feel is so familiar…

Over the course of thirty years, Zara and Leon are destined to fall in love again and again. But will they ever find a way to be together?

‘It’s about dreams and taking chances. Missed opportunities and mistakes. Loss and sacrifice. But above all, it is about love. The kind of love that survives time, distance… even death. The kind of love I wish for you.’

My Review

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Olivia Lara’s debut novel, Someday in Paris. I will start by saying that I had no clue that this was the author’s debut novel until I was done and getting things together for this post. So bravo to the author on a well-written first novel!

As the blurb states, this is an ongoing love story spanning from the fifties forward between Zara and Leon. Women in Zara’s family start having dreams in their teenage years that some believed to be premonitions about finding their great love in life. Zara and Leon meet in the dark while the power is out and talk for about an hour, both walking away feeling the first pangs of love. The rest of the novel is a series of both fortunate and unfortunate events either keeping them apart or pushing them together. A variety of secondary characters ranging from family members to lovers come into play throughout the novel, but overall the story is a love story about a couple that met as teenagers, not knowing what either looked like until many years later, but always feeling that connection to one another.

I admired Olivia Lara’s character development in this novel which truly made me feel as if I knew both of the main characters very well, as if we were old friends. I also loved the romantic and almost supernatural vibe associated with Leon and Zara’s relationship. The plot was unique, characters were engaging, and it easily held my interest from beginning to end.

Unfortunately, I do have a tiny bit of criticism. First, it was really long (I think around 420 pages or so). As invested as I was in the story, I got to the point where I was more than ready for everthing to wrap up. My other issue has to do with some major events in the novel, which I won’t identify because of spoilers. In fiction novels whether it’s romance or science fiction, readers have to suspend disbelief every once in awhile or the book just isn’t any fun. If you constantly think that something couldn’t happen or no man is that perfect, and so on – what’s the point of reading fiction? However, suspending disbelief was difficult for me while reading this because so many bad things happened to all of these characters. I’m not sure if they just all had the worst luck on earth, if they were cursed or what. But for all of these things to happen in a few people’s lifetimes was a bit of a stretch for me.

Nevertheless, this was an emotional and moving romance that I think everyone will consider a HEA ending. Romance lovers, especially those that enjoy storylines associated with fate or kismet, should add this one to your TBR now! Congrats to Olivia Lara on a wonderful debut!

*Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review!

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/39UDxwn

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2NeQM2D

Google Play: https://bit.ly/2NfEyqD

About the author:

Author photo

Olivia’s love for words started as a child when she spent all her summer vacations watching her grandfather, who worked for the biggest publishing house in Romania, edit hundreds of books. She is a former investigative journalist for a newspaper and a television network in Romania, now a Marketing Director in Silicon Valley – in between she lived in Paris where her love for the Alsace region was born.

Follow Olivia:

Twitter: @olilara_writes

Facebook: @olivialaraauthor

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