A Season in Paris

This is a beautiful and polished anthology of four separate historical stories all linked by the city of Paris, the four separate seasons, and to a lesser extent, a shop in that city.In the first story, Ava January's character, Delphine, risks everything on one chance meeting with a entrepreneurial landlord who helps her set up her dream milliner shop in a desirable Parisian street. As the stories unfold, this shop is used for varying purposes and/or those characters make small cameos. Such as when Sarah Fiddelaers' character, Genevieve, in The Secret Artist of Paris, remembers seeing a portrait of Delphine's wedding some twenty-five years earlier and thinks she might one day like to paint that portrait as it has always meant so much to her.All four stories were well written. Sarah Fiddelaers work will always be a favourite but I particularly enjoyed Ava January's story also. Delphine for the time period was a remarkable character.My favourite lines in the anthology go to Sarah Fiddelaers for this description of Paris that took my breath away: 'Paris always put winter on in a sulky way. It was as though autumn stretched too thin and simply faded into a season with no colour and no light. The trees were bare, the skies grey, the weather miserable and damp in a misty way that rarely settled to rain.'I look forward to what these talented writers come up with next.