Book Review: The Paris Apartment

By Lucy Foley

Published February 2022

368 Pages

I mention on occasion that I rarely, if ever, buy novels.  I read ARCs, borrow from my library, or borrow from friends.  It’s not that I’m cheap, but with the amount of money I drop on non-fiction books, I’d have to choose between eating and reading if I purchased everything.  Plus there’s only so much shelf space in my house.  I know, there’s kindle and I do purchase some ebooks, but usually, I prefer an old-fashioned pulp and paper book in my hands.  

In July, I discovered Lucy Foley when I read and reviewed The Guest List and impatiently awaited the release of this novel.  I tried to get a hold of The Paris Apartment as an ARC but alas, that didn’t work out.  I didn’t want to wait months to get it through the library so I decided to hell with it and bought it.  This book brought the number of novels I’ve purchased in the last year up to six and it was worth the buy.

Here’s the blurb:  Needing to get away from Brighton, Jess turns to her half-brother Ben for help.  He reluctantly agrees to let her stay with him in Paris, but when she arrives, he’s nowhere to be found.  The fact that he’s left his keys and wallet in his apartment seems strange, so Jess starts looking for him.  His neighbors are odd, unfriendly, or both, but all are unhelpful.  Concerned Ben may be in danger, Jess turns to anyone who may know where he is and in the process of retracing his last steps, she discovers an evil in the building that might be her undoing.

I’m happy to report that this novel lived up to my expectations.  Written in multiple POVs (with none being extraneous), Foley gave us a bird’s eye view into the lives and histories of several of the residents.  The tension stayed high as the clues dropped and the story built, and even though the “what” behind the secrets wasn’t such a mystery, there was still a good plot twist at the end.

This one is worth reading so I don’t want to give away too much.  And although I breezed through it and it met my expectations, I was left with a few questions that kept me from giving it a five star rating.

What was the point of making Theo a short-lived love interest?  How come no one seemed to care that Mimi was apparently mentally unbalanced?  How were most of the apartments only half the size of the Penthouse if there was only one apartment on each floor?  That last question might have only bugged me, but it was on my mind through at least half of the book.

In the end, I rated this novel a solid four stars.  ⭐⭐⭐⭐

If you know the answers to any of my questions, or just want to share your opinion, please drop a comment below.

Until next time, thank you for visiting.

My rating system:

5 stars – Wow, I could not stop thinking about this book and/or I wish I’d writtn it.

4 stars – This was an awesome novel, I’d recommend it to friends.

3 stars – This was a good novel, I will look for more by this author.

2 stars – An okay novel, but I probably won’t look for anything else by the author.

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