Serena is organized, strategic, and determined. She wants so desperately to connect to her parent's past trip, while also searching for her own feelings on love. However, when things begin to fall apart, each wrong move begins to erode and effect her already fragile emotions. She is tired, sad and lonely. She feels neglected by her family and guilty to be doing something other than remembering the past journey she has set herself on, even if that journey means removing herself from experiencing the magic of Paris. Jean-Luc is serious, spontaneous and completely averse to the quick "tour" Serena want to take of the most famous parts of Paris. He is in search of the true Paris, of the everyday magic this city presents to the people who live there and the people who travel from around the world to experience the romance. His slow movements to capture photographs derail all of Serena's plan, but he seems to want to make her forget her tight schedule, he wants her to feel what Paris is to her, to break away from her comfort zone. From the moment these two meet there is friction, tension and anger. They propel each other into learning things about themselves and how they have acted in the past. While their day continues to go off course, they both begin to experience what they need to in order to move past loss and change. They need to heal the broken parts of themselves, to accept who the are and move forward. I really adored the pacing, the characterization of the few actual players in the novel, the emotions of Serena and Jean-Luc, and the realism portrayed on these pages. Serena and Jean-Luc were very sympathetic characters, with issues that many readers would be able to grasp and appreciate. While the whole of the plot takes place in one day, their experience feels endless and life changing. The only real issue I had with this novel is that I felt the ending was rushed. I felt there would have been a little more oomph with a little more narrative. There is nothing wrong, though, with wanting more of a great story. Well done on the whole. I was given an advanced copy of this novel by KCP Loft in exchange for an honest review.
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