Natasha Lester Archives - Debbish Archive

Book review: The Paris Secret by Natasha Lester

Tuesday, March 31, 2020 Permalink

All of Natasha Lester’s novels have featured ground-breaking women. Those ahead of their time – battling society’s norms and often weighed down by the expectations of those they love.

Her books I’ve enjoyed most have probably featured women with more virtuous pursuits (and I don’t mean to imply beauty products/make-up or designing fashion aren’t lofty life goals). Her first book, A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald featured a woman battling to get into medical school in the early 1920s; her last, The French Photographer a female war photographer.

Her books unfold in multiple timeframes, usually the past and present(ish). Her latest, The Paris Secret is no different and is probably my favourite since her first. Not only did I enjoy the characters and their stories, but Lester’s writing is quite exquisite.

Book review: The French Photographer by Natasha Lester

Tuesday, April 23, 2019 Permalink

I’d had this book for a while before I read it as I’m participating in a blog tour for this latest release by Natasha Lester, The French Photographer. It means I’ve seen a few reviews around, including a negative one in mainstream media which Lester shared just after the book’s publication.

I was surprised by that as this is possibly my favourite book by Lester; although it might be a toss-up between this and A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald, and I think that is because the subject matter is ‘meatier’ than her two more recent novels. (If that makes sense!)

Book review: The Paris Seamstress by Natasha Lester

Tuesday, March 27, 2018 Permalink

I enjoyed Natasha Lester’s second book, Her Mother’s Secret, but I’d really really loved her first book, A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald. At the time I very much appreciated the insight it offered into the plight of women who’d come less than a century before me – not just through career-limitations but also through society’s beliefs and values, and sadly, its norms.

I reflected on this as I steamed through The Paris Seamstress. It’s most certainly saga-like. It doesn’t centre around topics as heavy and lesson-laden as Lester’s debut novel and yet I adored it and could not put it down.

I was rivetted. By the story of Estelle – a wannabe fashion designer in the 1940s – and her granddaughter Fabienne, a young woman wanting to make her own mark on the world.

Book review: Her Mother’s Secret by Natasha Lester

Wednesday, March 29, 2017 Permalink

Natasha Lester’s A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald was one of my favourite reads of 2016. I don’t usually read historical fiction but very much enjoyed the novel set in America in the 1920s.

Lester’s latest release, Her Mother’s Secret is another period drama and again centres around the plight of a young woman forced to fight societal norms and prejudice for acceptance and equality.

Book review: A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald by Natasha Lester

Thursday, May 12, 2016 Permalink

I confessed in my Sunday Post that I downloaded this book accidentally. I had no quarrel with the book itself or its Australian author, Natasha Lester. Rather, I’d assumed it to be a combination of two genres I just don’t read: romance and historical fiction.

I’ve talked before about why I don’t read romance (relationship-envy, cheesy sex scenes) but reasons for my lack of interest in historical fiction aren’t really obvious to me. And yes… I’m such a navel-gazing, self-absorbed introspective type you’d think I would have analysed that little foible. But alas… I usually just find I can’t relate so don’t even try.

But yet again… I’ve surprised myself.