Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [1]
—Brunswick Times Record
“Rice’s great strength is in creating realistic characters readers care about.”
—The Denver Post
“Few … authors are able to portray the complex and contradictory emotions that bind family members as effortlessly as Rice.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Full of all the things families are made of: love, secrets, traditions, and memories.”
—The Providence Journal
“Luanne Rice handles with marvelous insight and sensitivity the complex chemistry of a family that might be the one next door.”
—EILEEN GOUDGE
“Rice, a terrific storyteller and a poetic stylist, takes on a difficult and brutal subject and transforms it into a source of light and hope.”
—Booklist
“Irresistible … fast-paced … moving … vivid storytelling. Readers can almost smell the sea air. Rice has a gift for creating realistic characters, and the pages fly by as those characters explore the bonds of family.”
—Orlando Sentinel
“What the author does best: heartfelt family drama, gracefully written and poignant.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Rice, always skilled at drafting complex stories … reveals her special strength in character development.”
—The Star-Ledger
“Rice’s ability to evoke the lyricism of the seaside lifestyle without oversentimentalizing contemporary issues … is just one of … many gifts that make … a perfect summer read.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Rice, as always, provides her readers with a delightful love story filled with the subtle nuances of the human heart.”
—Booklist
“Luanne Rice touches the deepest, most tender corners of the heart.”
—TAMI HOAG
“Pure gold.”
—Library Journal
BY LUANNE RICE
The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners • The Geometry of Sisters
Last Kiss • Light of the Moon • What Matters Most
The Edge of Winter • Sandcastles • Summer of Roses
Summer’s Child • Silver Bells • Beach Girls • Dance With Me
The Perfect Summer • The Secret Hour • True Blue
Safe Harbor • Summer Light • Firefly Beach
Dream Country • Follow the Stars Home • Cloud Nine
Home Fires • Blue Moon • Secrets of Paris
Stone Heart • Crazy in Love • Angels All Over Town
with Joseph Monninger
The Letters
Secrets of Paris is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
2011 Bantam Books Trade Paperback Edition
Copyright © 1991 by Luanne Rice
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Viking Penguin, a division of
Penguin Books USA Inc., in 1991.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following
copyrighted works:
Madame de Sévigné: A Life and Letters by Frances Mossiker. Copyright ©
1983 by Frances Mossiker. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
a division of Random House, Inc.
Selected Letters by Madame de Sévigné, translated by Leonard Tancock,
Penguin Classics 1982. Copyright © Leonard Tancock, 1982.
Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rice, Luanne.
Secrets of Paris: a novel / Luanne Rice.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90817-6 I. Title.
PS3558.I289S44 1991
813′.54—dc20 90-50746
www.bantamdell.com
Cover design: Brigid Pearson
Cover images: © TanMan/Getty Images (sunset), David Sacks/Taxi/Getty Images (couple), Jan Martin Will/Shutterstock (Seine)
v3.1
For Max, Olivier,
and Amelia Onorato,
with love
Contents
Cover
Also by Luanne Rice
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
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