It's Not Love, It's Just Paris: A Novel
Aug 2013 · Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
3.2star
4 reviews
Ebook
240
Pages
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Eligible
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About this ebook
A spellbinding story of a young American abroad and a star-crossed relationship: “This is a novel to get lost in.” —The Miami Herald
Lita del Cielo is the daughter of two Colombian immigrants who arrived in America with nothing and made a fortune with their Latin food empire. Now Lita has been granted one year to pursue her studies in Paris before returning to work in the family business. She moves into a crumbling Left Bank mansion known as “The House of Stars,” where the spirited but bedridden Countess Séraphine rents out rooms to young women visiting Paris to work, to study, and, unofficially, to find love.
Cautious and guarded, Lita keeps a cool distance from the other girls, who seem at once boldly adult and impulsively naïve, who both intimidate and fascinate her. Then Lita meets Cato, and the contours of her world shift. Charming, enigmatic, and weak with illness, Cato is the son of a notorious right-wing politician. As Cato and Lita retreat to their own world, they soon find it difficult to keep the outside world from closing in on theirs. Ultimately Lita must decide whether to stay in France with Cato or return home to fulfill her family’s dreams for her future.
From the author of Vida, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris is a love story, a portrait of a Paris caught between the old world and the new, and an exploration of one woman’s journey to lay claim to her own life.
“Wise and accomplished . . . Beautifully written.” —The New York Times Book Review
Lita del Cielo is the daughter of two Colombian immigrants who arrived in America with nothing and made a fortune with their Latin food empire. Now Lita has been granted one year to pursue her studies in Paris before returning to work in the family business. She moves into a crumbling Left Bank mansion known as “The House of Stars,” where the spirited but bedridden Countess Séraphine rents out rooms to young women visiting Paris to work, to study, and, unofficially, to find love.
Cautious and guarded, Lita keeps a cool distance from the other girls, who seem at once boldly adult and impulsively naïve, who both intimidate and fascinate her. Then Lita meets Cato, and the contours of her world shift. Charming, enigmatic, and weak with illness, Cato is the son of a notorious right-wing politician. As Cato and Lita retreat to their own world, they soon find it difficult to keep the outside world from closing in on theirs. Ultimately Lita must decide whether to stay in France with Cato or return home to fulfill her family’s dreams for her future.
From the author of Vida, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris is a love story, a portrait of a Paris caught between the old world and the new, and an exploration of one woman’s journey to lay claim to her own life.
“Wise and accomplished . . . Beautifully written.” —The New York Times Book Review
Ratings and reviews
3.2
4 reviews
Ramesh Prasad
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October 26, 2014
Ramesh. Prasad. Yavad
2 people found this review helpful
About the author
Patricia Engel was born to Colombian parents and raised in New Jersey. She has a degree in French and art history from New York University, and an MFA from Florida International University. Her debut novel, Vida was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Awards, winner of an Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal for Literary Fiction, and was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice and an LA Weekly Top Book of the Year.
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