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THE PARIS PEACEMAKERS by Flora Johnston

Book Review

I started The Paris Peacemakers and being transparent it took me a while to tune into the author’s unique writing style.  I am glad I eventually found the writing rhythm and immersed myself completely in the book. 

The book follows Stella, Corran and Rob. It starts at a rugby game in Edinburgh, Scotland, just before the start of WW1. We see the camaraderie of the rugby players and the support and love from the crowds. A happy moment before the horrors they would all face with the war. 

My takeaway from the feeling of the book was that the author wanted to encompass the way people behaved back then. A stiff upper lip, nobody discussing feeling and all rather proper. Even though there are horrific events in the story and very heart-pulling things happening it doesn’t have the emotional verbalism that a book set today would have. If it was set today, they would all be having mental health days and therapy. Both of which I am glad are available. But back then the a lack of talking about feelings, especially from those on the front line who saw friends and co-workers killed. I feel it made it worse for them, they had no verbal outlet. The author captured that feeling perfectly. So for me when difficult things were happening it was obvious the lack of emotion involved was purposeful. 

I enjoyed also that I learned so much. I never knew about the Peace talks or those typists who went to The Majestic Hotel. I found that truly fascinating and I was transported there. The story feels solid in the way it flows with all the characters interweaving each other’s lives.

With today’s current affairs, it feels like history repeating itself. With all those lives wasted nobody in power seems to have learned. Over 100 years later and still men in power making life-changing decisions and using people as collateral damage. It is utterly devastating. 

I do read a lot of war saga fiction and that tends to be the families left at home and the different struggles they have with rations and family matters. It was very interesting to have this book be from the people out there in the war. Be it on the battle lines, or teaching soldiers or in the hotel doing important work. That was such a different angle to write about and it works. It had me hooked and I was totally immersed and could see everything happening as I ghosted alongside Rob, Stella and Corran.

So if you are looking for a new read, I recommend The Paris Peacemakers. You will be educated and satisfied when you close the last page. You will also be waiting maybe not so patiently for the sequel in 2025. 

Back of the Book

Paris, 1919. Will the brittle pieces of Europe ever fit together again?

As the fragile negotiations of the International Peace Conference get underway, typist Stella Rutherford throws herself into her work and the mixture of glamour and devastation the City of Light reveals. Anything to escape the grief coming in waves for her beloved brother Jack.

Her sister Corran is about to put her academic career to use among the troops in France, a chance to see what the experience was like for countless men, including her fiancé Rob.

Rob Campbell, profoundly changed by his time as a surgeon on the front line, has had little chance to lift his head from the incessant grind of the injured, dying and dead. If he did the ghosts of his teammates, the Scottish rugby players who followed the same path into hell, would surely be waiting for him.

The Paris Peacemakers follows three Scots as they attempt to pick up the pieces of their lives while the fabric of Europe is stitched together for good or ill.

Thank you to Josie at Allison and Busby for my gifted copy. Sent in exchange for an honest and authentic review. I like being transparent and checking my review with the free Grammarly add-on is something I do. The app checks and helps me with spelling and grammar. All the thoughts in the book review are written by me, not by a robot.

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