The Lost Girl in Paris

Jina Bacarr

Description

'I will never forget what the Nazi did to me. Never'

1940, Nazi-occupied Paris. A powerful story of love, tragedy and incredible courage, about one woman whose life is ripped apart by war and risks everything to seek justice. Brand new from the bestselling author of The Resistance Girl.

As Nazis patrol the streets of the French capital, Tiena is alone, desperate and on the run. After defending herself against the force of an officer, she must find a new identity in order to survive.

An accidental meeting with members of the Resistance gives her a lifeline, as she is offered the chance to reinvent herself as perfumer Angéline De Cadieux.

However Angéline will never forget what happened to her, and will do everything she can to seek revenge. But vengeance can be a dangerous game, and Angeline can only hide her true identity for so long before her past catches up with her, with some devastating consequences...

Paris, 2003. When the opportunity arises for aspiring journalist Emma Keane to interview world renowned perfumer Madame De Cadieux about her life during World War Two, she is determined to take it. There are secrets from her own family history that she hopes Angéline may be able to help unlock.

But nothing can prepare Emma for Angéline's story, and one thing is for certain - it will change her own life forever…

An absolutely heartbreaking, unforgettable historical novel of war, sacrifice and survival. Perfect for fans of Suzanne Goldring, Ella Carey and Catherine Hokin.

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Thriller
• Vie de famille
• Relations familiales
• Multiple Timelines
• Mashups
• Historical Fiction
• Feminist
• Holidays
• 20th Century
• Historical
• Women
• Coming of Age
• Segunda Guerra Mundial
• Military history
• Friendship
• Historical romance
• Dating
• General officer
• Military
• Woman
• World War II
• History of Europe
• Feminism
• The Women
• General
• Family Life
• Romance
• Fiction
• Seconde Guerre mondiale
• France
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781838893828
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE LOST GIRL IN PARIS



JINA BACARR
CONTENTS



Author’s note


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50


Acknowledgments

More from Jina Bacarr

About the Author

About Boldwood Books
To the brave Jewish and Roma souls who died in the Holocaust and to all those who survived.
You will never be forgotten.
AUTHOR’S NOTE

The House of Doujan in Paris is famous for its unique perfumes that entrance the wearer. Since perfume can be comprised of many different ingredients, I’ve included only the dominant top, heart, and base notes to give you a ‘mental’ sniff of the fragrance. Merci.
1
NEW YORK CITY, 2003



Emma


Perfume:
Mystère D’Amour
Tuscan mandarin, mimosa, ambrette.
I tilt my head as Madame de Cadieux, the grande dame of French perfume, makes her entrance into the Waldorf Grand Ballroom. Pausing under a crystal chandelier, her wisps of fiery color frame her beautiful face, as flawless as a queen’s pearl. I bet she made a bargain with the devil to have skin that smooth at her age. God, she must be eighty.
I keep my distance, observing this woman in detail, making notes in my reporter’s notebook. She’s taller than I expected, slender like a single rose with that je ne sais quoi quality Frenchwomen have that makes you feel as plain as a church mouse. Uplifted chin, straight back, elegant hand gestures say she doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks. Angéline de Cadieux commands attention even when she doesn’t speak. Her lips are Paris red, eyelids smudged with a smoky haze. No jewelry.
I move in closer and get a whiff of the scent trailing behind her, subtle but unforgettable: rose absolute, pepper, lavender.
Her signature perfume.
Naomie’s Dream .
Created in Paris in 1941 for the House of Doujan.
I grin with the memory of a summer night when I was sixteen and my date gave me a bottle of Naomie’s Dream . I was obsessed with impressing him with my uncanny ‘nose talent’, rattling off the ingredients. Then, in college, I peddled fragrances in department stores but regret not going to Paris to learn the art of perfume. What I wouldn’t give to study under Madame de Cadieux. Watch the legend herself blending essences.
Wearing a white silk georgette gown with long Juliet sleeves, she never cracks a smile. As if she’s posing for a Renoir painting. I’m dying to know what makes this woman tick. Grab an interview with her to see if she can take the lid off this strange addiction I have to unraveling the secrets of scent. By knowing what drives her , I can figure myself out.
And help my mom find her roots.
My grandmother was a political prisoner, a Polish woman who died in Dachau at the end of the war… Madame was a prisoner there from 1944–1945. Did they know each other? What a story that would make.
When Mom was diagnosed with lung cancer last year, she tried getting more info about her biological family on those ‘find your relatives’ websites but didn’t get anywhere. I know she was disappointed, and I’d love to see her smile if I uncovered info about her mom. Which is why I’ve always had a soft spot for seeking out survivor stories like madame ’s.
Her eyes move in every direction, scrutinizing the crowd with precision, her nose twitching as if the collective scent is distasteful to her. I can only imagine what she’s smelled in her lifetime. Love, hate… war. There’s an aura of danger about her, a life filled with close calls, hardship and excitement, according to what I dug up from the TV station’s archives. She’s known in the perfume business as a premier nez – nose. Hard to believe this woman survived two Nazi concentration camps – Auschwitz and Dachau – and rose to the top of the fragrance business during a time when female creators were ignored if not outright banned.
My boss, Theodore Granger, hit the roof when I stomped into his office and told him I wanted to do a piece on the legendary perfume goddess when I heard she’d flown in from Paris to accept a tribute from an esteemed Long Island charity for her work with the ‘forgotten children of war’. I snagged an invite to cover the event for WJJR-TV Channel 6 News by promising Granger I’d take any boring assignment he threw my way for the next six months if he let me follow my hunch.
I had to cover it.
Two years ago, when I became involved with a Holocaust project covering human interest stories with nursing home residents, I heard about a German woman who survived Dachau. I went to interview her, but the staff told me the thin, lonely woman wasn’t ‘all there’; that she refused to cut her long gray braid wrapped around her head, and referred to herself as Luise, though her name was Gretchen. When I asked her if she knew a Polish political prisoner who had a baby in the camp in 1944, she started twitching, hunching her shoulders, turning her head at awkward angles. No, she insisted, then she kept jabbering about a secret baby born to a French prisoner in a camp near Dachau. A woman from Paris, a fair-haired mademoiselle who made perfume.
I believe madame is that Frenchwoman.
Call it a reporter’s hunch, but I’ve been a fan girl of Madame de Cadieux since I was fifteen and got my first whiff of Angéline , the perfume named after her. Spanish mimosa, tuberose, and musk. I’ve loved the art of perfume since I was a kid and doused myself in my grandmother’s sweet jasmine scent until I reeked. She bought gallons of the stuff from the PX. I drove my mother crazy, collecting vials of sample perfume from the cosmetic counter and trying to figure out the floral and spicy ingredients. I moved on when I discovered I have a nose for news, but I still get excited when I sniff an exotic perfume that tickles my brain to unravel its fragrant mystery.
But it’s nowhere as intriguing as madame herself.
What happened to her baby? I want to know. Who was the father? I’m not leaving the Waldorf until I make my pitch to Madame de Cadieux.
Satisfied she’s captured every eye, madame glides across the room, her long white silk gown trailing after her like a cloud, a slender woman with eternal grace in every movement, traits I envy. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve jumped into situations headfirst and asked questions afterwards. That crazy streak makes me a damned good reporter.
I set my sights on her , my cameraman hot on my heels as I push in to grab a quick interview with the famous parfumier for the eleven o’clock news. She moves fast for a woman her age, skirting past admirers trying to grab her attention. I step it up a notch, zigzagging between chatty glammed up attendees, working up a sweat.
‘Get a shot of Madame de Cadieux in the background, Hank,’ I call out, ‘when I do my tease.’
‘You got it, babe.’
I roll my eyes. ‘I’m not your babe. Got it ?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He snickers, but does as I ask. Where did Granger get this guy? Wouldn’t you know he’d stick me with a jerk to remind me to get the story in the can and get back to covering real news.
I shrug off his comment and go into my spiel, ‘This is Emma Keane coming to you from the famed Waldorf Astoria…’ hoping Hank is getting the shot while I do my intro, then I’m off to get the interview and show my boss I’m not crazy. I push through the crowd gawking at madame when—
Hold on, is that Brooke Hansen from the NYC Sun ?
What’s she doing here?
She did an interview with madame regarding synthetics in perfume about two years ago. What she was really after was a tell-all about the war.
When Madame de Cadieux refused to talk about her wartime experiences, Brooke splashed the story on the front page of the scandal sheet with the headline: ‘Fake Perfumes by a Fake Nose’. She accused Madame de Cadieux of making up her story about being in Auschwitz because the Frenchwoman refused to show her a prisoner number tattooed on her arm. Brooke wrote she never had one.
She also hinted madame collaborated with the Germans during the war.
I never believed a word of it and the story got buried. I imagine the New York investors who bought into the House of Doujan had something to do with it. I’m surprised the blonde reporter had the audacity to show up here. She lost her job and didn’t work until a third-rate tabloid specializing in sleaze picked her up.
I study her moves. She’s cagey… trying to fit in with the giggling groupies crowding around the French parfumier . I get my speed on to nail the interview when—
Yikes … I almost drop my mike as a tall, gorgeous man in a gray silk suit rushes by me, cell phone to his ear, and heads toward the star-struck women.
I shake my head. I know the type. He can never have too many phone numbers in his black book. Or he’s an out of work actor eager to get on Brooke’s good side – if she has one – and get his picture in the papers. Whatever. He’s not going to screw up my interview.
‘Hey, you, Mr Gray Suit. I’m working here.’
He shoots around and I lock eyes with a dark, handsome stranger with pure Bond masculinity.
‘You were addressing me ?’ he quips in a disapproving tone with a sexy Irish accent, his arms crossed, his distaste of anyone getting in his way so obvious I feel my cheeks tint.
‘You nearly ran me over.’
‘You ran into me ,’ he insists, though not a wrinkle mars his elegant silk suit. ‘Then again, you are a member of the press,’ he says, reading