Missing the next season of “The Great British Bake Off”? No worries. “A Bakery in Paris” by Aimie K. Runyan might just do the trick to satisfy not only your sweet tooth with its recipes for sweet treats, but also your heart with the lovely romances that span almost a century. Both main characters, Lisette in 1870 and Micheline in 1946, love to bake.
Lisette was born to a wealthy family in Paris, and while she has every material possession she might want, what she enjoys most is spending time in the kitchen with Nanette, helping her cook and learning to bake. Her baking abilities are soon prodigious, and some of her baked goods are tastier even then those of her mentor, Nanette. Micheline learned to bake with her mother. But when Paris was taken by the Nazis during the war, there was scant flour and butter for baking. Shortly after the war, her mother disappeared.
Lisette has a rebellious nature and thinks about things like the fact that Marie, Nanette’s assistant, can’t afford a second dress to wear. She thinks about how different her life is from the lives of everyday people, and she feels guilty. She feels that it’s unfair her family has so much while others literally starve in the streets. When she meets a fiery activist who wants to change things, Lisette decides to escape her life of ease for a life that might have more meaning. It doesn’t hurt that she also falls in love with Théodore, the passionate reformer.
Micheline’s life is quite different. She lives in an apartment over a cafe with her two younger sisters. Her father was killed years ago and now, with the disappearance of her mother, she is trying to raise her sisters. But because no one knows what happened to her mother, she can’t access any of the family funds. When the tenants who run the cafe leave, there will be no rent coming in, and she doesn’t know what to do.
What makes both these women happy is baking. Lisette carefully writes down the recipes she learns from Nanette, and those recipes for bread and pastries are what she eventually sells in the bakery she opens after leaving her family. Micheline loves baking the family recipes, but doesn’t think about doing it as a profession until a dear family friend intervenes.
Runyan creates characters who strive to do their best, and even some of the minor characters are more nuanced than we are first led to believe. The writing is, at times, lovely. One metaphor is when Lisette compares a silk gown to a sturdier plain linen one. She reflects that “One was flawlessly smooth, made to glisten under candlelight. The other was sturdier and was a garment in which one could…live a life.” And while the linen might be stiff and scratchy, she knew that it would last and withstand working and weather and time. And Lisette thinks, “I was the linen, and I was meant to live life.” The book is engaging, and we feel sympathy for the two women as they experience loss and must come to terms with their new reality. In the end, both women face a hopeful, promising future.
Perhaps ignorantly, I had assumed that after the French Revolution, things were fine. Royalty was dispensed with and there was more equality there. Because of this book, I realize how wrong I was. And isn’t that the wonder of reading historical fiction—that sometimes it teaches us facts that we didn’t know. I plan on trying some of the recipes that are included at the end of some chapters.
Warning: Don’t read on an empty stomach!
Please note: This review is based on the advance reader’s copy provided by William Morrow paperbacks, the publisher, for review purposes.