Title: The Black Swan of Paris
Author: Karen Robards
Series: n/a
Rife with tension, heartache, and hope
I would like to thank Karen Robards, Harlequin MIRA, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review. Also thanks to Justine Sha for inviting me to participate in the blog tour.
Don’t take my 4-star rating to heart; I wasn’t the ideal audience for this type of book. I wanted to read this because it was written by Karen Robards, a romance author I’ve often enjoyed, not because it’s WWII historical fiction. I usually don’t read much pertaining to WWII, or wars in general, really. Not my thing. So it’s not surprising that I skimmed if not completely skipped pages containing exposition describing the war and Occupied Paris; I cared about the characters—always my favorite story element—and needed action to hold my mite-sized attention, so I swiped and swiped until I found dialogue, then tuned back in. Robards’s research was largely wasted on me, unfortunately.
That’s not to say the narrative was boring or held too much exposition; it struck me as well-paced and having a good balance of “show” vs. “tell.” I simply wasn’t interested in what I was being “told” about the war. Nope, as usual, my ears didn’t prick up until the romance came more into focus and got more screen time, around 50-60%.
I wasn’t sure if I liked Max or not until it became clear that he wasn’t as emotionally removed or indifferent as he put on, and that the discord between him and Genevieve was perpetuated for their own protection more than an honest dislike of each other. Once I figured him out, I loved him. I liked Genevieve; she was compassionate and more or less relatable, though I’m not sure there was anything particularly charismatic about her. Lillian and Emmy were meh, okay; I sympathized with their grief and regrets, but I’m not sure I cared about them much. I think I mostly cared about them because Genevieve did. Strangely, I think I cared about Berthe and Otto a little more than Lillian and Emmy.
So yeah. It was fine. *shrugs* I liked it well enough, and it was well written as far as I could tell, but I don’t plan to revisit it. I do recommend it to those who love WWII historical fiction, but I caution Robards fans looking for romance—you may be disappointed, unless you’re also a fan of historical fiction with little to no romance. Maybe get it from the library first, see if you can get into it.
