Paris by Edward Rutherfurd

 genre: historical fiction

If you know of the author, Edward Rutherford, then you probably would guess that this was a multigenerational, 800+ page book that takes place in a centralized area. And you’d be right. This time it’s Paris and while we don’t start in the stone age, we get to see Paris from the early medieval period all the way until nearly the present day. The bulk of our time, however, is spent in the previous three centuries as we follow several families while they experience kingdoms and wars, revolutions and resistance. We meet famous people throughout and make our way through the quintessential historical events that impacted Paris, the city of light.

I loved it. I read it on a Kindle, because that’s a heavy book to carry around, and I read through it surprisingly fast. I love books where I am making connections between families and people throughout time. The book does come with a cast of characters family tree, which really helps at the beginning to keep people straight but by the end they are familiar. We meet shopkeepers and aristocrats, brothel owners, and ironworkers, Jews and Catholics and Protestants. There is romance and betrayal and terror and heartache. There are hard choices and beautiful redemptions. It is just hard to sum up a book like this but overall, I am really glad that I read it. The only reason I am giving it 4.5 stars instead of five is because literarily it is never really gorgeous. The language and writing doesn’t necessarily strike me with its beauty, but it is such a work of art that to give it less than four stars feels unfair.