Image from Amazon
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley was my most recent can’t-put-down story. While I followed along in a physical copy, I simultaneously listened to the audiobook over Audible. For my own attention span, listening was a blessing, but for my vintique soul, I needed the paperback in-hand. The book opens to main character, Jess Hadley, running from an abusive job atmosphere in London. She takes the train to Paris to go stay with her brother, Ben Daniels, but when she gets there, Ben is nowhere to be seen.
Surrounded by mysterious characters, seemingly helpful neighbors, and questions around every corner, Jess is constantly questioning the people around her, and her own sanity. Why did this happen? Where did my brother go? Did something bad happen to Ben? Why are you all acting so weird?
From top-to-bottom, Sophie and Jacques Meunier are the socialite and business owner couple who reside in the penthouse. Jacques, while rarely around, runs everything he does with an iron fist. He owns a wine company, but something smells rotten to Jess. Sophie is a snoody, nose-up socialite who knows she’s better than you, and actively shows it. With a dark past, slowly uncovered by Jess, Sophie comes with more baggage than she’d like to admit.
Mimi lives one level lower than the sparkly couple. Mimi is a young girl who lives in the apartment with her friend, Camille. These two besties could not be more different, and while opposites tend to attract, the tension between these two is evident. Mimi is small, with deep features and an all-black wardrobe. Camille is also young, but wild, and she easily falls in love.
Nick, Ben’s University friend, and child of Jacques and his previous wife, lives in another flat in the looming building. Nick starts the story off acting helpful, taking Jess to speak to the police and acting very concerned for Ben. One night, on the penthouse rooftop, Nick almost kisses Jess. This is the same night she realizes they’re all a family, and while the romantic second was great, it was fleeting, and for the better it seems. Not to mention, Nick and Ben had a few moments together years before, and Nick didn’t seem over it.
Antione is the eldest son of Jacques and ex-wife, and the eldest step-son of Sophie. Antione is an abusive figure towards wife, Dominique, and a drunk. On Jess’s second day in the family home, she watches as Antione and Dominique fight. Antione believes his wife has fallen for Ben, as it seems everybody has. However, the truth is that Dominique has actually fallen for Camille, Mimi’s flatmate and best friend. And Camille had fallen for Dominique back. Dominique’s presence does not last long, as she leaves after this heated fight and is only spoken about after.
Theo, editor for The Telegraph, is the eventual love interest of Jess, and the one who helps her uncover the truth and find Ben. He had been employing Ben as a freelance writer, and Ben had been working on an expose on Sophie and Jacques secret dance club and real business motives. Theo is the good guy, meeting with Jess soon after she arrives, when she asks, and helping her multiple times, until he finally falls for her, and her back.
The story unravels from there, and Jess is on the brink of a breakthrough in Ben’s case. She has the help of editor, Theo, of The Telegraph who had Ben working for him as a freelance writer. Jess, spending more and more time around Theo, naturally falls for him a little bit, which is where we get the romance aspect we were all waiting for.
The Concierge, long time employee of the Meunier’s, lives on the ground floor, in a very small one-room “flat”. Immigrant to Paris and mother of the woman who gave birth to Mimi, and died shortly after, she moved here to find her daughter who had stumbled into sex work at the Meunier’s secret club. She knew more than she let on, and worked for these people for so long to be near her lost granddaughter, who was kept by the people who exploited her and let her die.
As Jess realizes the truth behind her new neighbors, while searching for Ben, it all comes together. SPOILER ALERT: The tenets are secretly all related, in fact, they are a family. Sophie married into the family after being “rescued” by Jacques in a dance club where she was working and he was patroning. Sophie quickly became the stepmother of Nick and Antione, and adoptive mother to Mimi. Not only is Mimi adopted, but she was in love with Ben, and she’s the biological granddaughter of the buildings concierge, who’s daughter died during childbirth with Mimi. Jess pieces all this together over drinks in the penthouse one night, when she’s freshening up. She decides to do some peeping, and she finds a photo of the family together, it’s then when she fully loses it.
The are B-level characters such as Commissaire Blanchot, the officer to led Ben’s case, and Irina, a dancer at the club the Meunier’s own and a helpful light in the attempt to find ben. She gives information to Jess and Theo when he takes her to the secret club for a show on an instinctual lead in the Ben case.
The home, alone, is a mysterious character. With hidden doorways, a chilling cellar, spooky secret staircases and a gothic, beautiful exterior, the building is like no other. Being where Ben is eventually found, hidden behind a door nobody had checked behind, it held all of the drama and so much more.
Ben is eventually found behind that secret door by Jess, alive, but barely. He was never missing, he was never murdered, he was right in the building this whole time. Sophie had been feeding him, trying to get him to forget what actually happened and not tell on the family. Mimi, being madly in love with Ben, ran to his protection that fateful night, when Jacques found out about the story Ben was writing and snuck in through his balcony door with a wine bottle, hitting Ben and causing him to pass out. Mimi heard the whole thing and ran to his rescue, but while trying to reason with her father, she grabbed a knife and stabbed her adoptive father. It was Jacques who died, not Ben, but to protect her only daughter, Sophie hid Ben too. Jess had assumed Jacuqes was away for work this whole time, because that’s what the family led her to believe, but mousey Mimi was nervously hiding a dark secret, explaining her unusual behavior throughout the whole story. Ben ends up writing his story, but leaving out everybody but Jacques, protecting the family in order to get them to let he and Jess go free.
The book ends with Jess finding a flat of her own, and Ben making a full recovery. It also brings Jess and Ben inevitably closer as siblings, never being so after their childhood when Jess had come home to find their mother dead, and Ben had left her for a fancy foster family who wanted only him. Leaving her to the foster system for her formative years, Ben is adopted by the wealthy family and leads a great life, while letting Jess slip away until now.
There are so many other twists and secrets inside The Paris Apartment, but if I told you the whole story you’d have no reason to read it, so I won’t. I’m holding out hope for a film, but I’m not sure if it will actually happen, although it is being considered!
Comments