Last Christmas in Paris

Last Christmas in Paris is a Hazel Gaynor-Heather Webb historical novel written in the form of a collection of letters. In the few pages of narrative that open the book, one learns that Thomas Harding is an old man, and a dying one, but one determined to spend his last Christmas in Paris. It is 1969. Thomas takes with him a stack of letters from the first world war, which he intends to read in their entirety in Paris.

The correspondence consists largely, though not exclusively, between him and his best friend's sister, Evie Elliott. With the exception of a handful of narrative pages between each year (1914, 1915, and so on), the entire book takes the form of these letters, with the sporadic narrative filling in the gaps and allowing the reader to guess what secrets might be revealed in the course of the correspondence.

It's hard to know why this book struck me as so mediocre. Partly, the style (letter after letter after letter) wore on me. At times the writing was repetitive. What got to me most was how formulaic it felt. This is a narrative that's been mined time and again (especially in the craze for all things British Great War spawned by Downton Abbey), such that even the "twists" felt predictable. In other words:
Meh.

Meh plot, meh characters, meh writing. Or, as I evidently summed up a previous Hazel Gaynor read: this isn't a bad book. It's just not a great one, and there are too many of those for me to recommend this one wholeheartedly.

This was the second Gaynor and Webb book I've read recently (and the fourth Gaynor book I've read in the past several years). Interestingly, although the author names were familiar, I didn't initially realize that, as the two are so different. Although not perfect, I preferred Meet Me in Monaco, but can see that that period and location could easily influence a reader's preference for one over the other.

Three stars.