One Evening in Paris

After ''Ingredients of love'', I thought there couldn't be a better love book in Paris. I was so much wrong. This book... This book.. is the most amazing thing I've read in maybe years. Melanie reminds me of myself. Every single part of her. Her character has made me want to read the book one more time and another and another. And Alain,oh my God.. His will to find her left me breathless. His resistance to Solene, his love for Melanie and his strong faith, even when sometimes even he lost faith.. At the end, I realized that everything remains in the hands of Destiny. That little chance we all get in life, and our choice whether we'll make it right or wrong. Amazing..

After ''Ingredients of love'', I thought there couldn't be a better love book in Paris. I was so much wrong. This book... This book.. is the most amazing thing I've read in maybe years. Melanie reminds me of myself. Every single part of her. Her character has made me want to read the book one more time and another and another. And Alain,oh my God.. His will to find her left me breathless. His resistance to Solene, his love for Melanie and his strong faith, even when sometimes even he lost faith.. At the end, I realized that everything remains in the hands of Destiny. That little chance we all get in life, and our choice whether we'll make it right or wrong. Amazing..

Looking for a contemporary romance novel that pulls at your heart string and has a pinch of mystery? One Evening In Paris by Nicholas Barreau fits the bill!

Alain Bonnard owns a small, art cinema in Paris. He inherited it from his Uncle, and it's a hidden gem in Paris. It's an old school cinema - no popcorn, no soda pop, no big Hollywood movies - just art films. It's a nostalgia, dreamy place, and for him it becomes a real life dream. A woman in a red coat keeps attending, and Alain finally builds up the courage to ask her up. They go on a wonderful date, but then suddenly she's gone. While he's looking for his true love, he meets a famous film doctor and his leading lady. They want to borrow his cinema for a shoot, and how could he turn show more that down? But is this movie coming to town and his mystery girl a coincidence? Alain will find out as he works to find his true love.

This book was incredibly sweet. It's an artsy book with lots of heart and shows the love of cinema. This book is marketed as a romance, but I find the romance is a bit of a side plot to the contemporary fiction side of this story. Despite this issue, I think Nicolas Barreau wrote romance beautifully. I find romances written by men don't always have the female gaze in mind, but Nicolas did. This hopeless romantic ideal felt like reading an old 40s film (but the polite, cute ones).

Overall, this is a magical contemporary fiction book with just enough romance. I highly recommend picking this book up to spice up your reading list in 2023 and onwards.

Four out of five stars. show less

I had trouble getting into the story.
It reminds me of the episode of How I Met Your Mother where they discussed their theory about a grand act of love being considered either romantic or insane. They said it depends a lot on how much the other person likes you too. If you make a grand gesture and they are in love with you, it's romantic. If not, they're likely to think you're crazy.

So, with this story, a man owns a movie theatre and has a crush on a customer. He builds courage up for months to ask her out. He finally asks her out and they have a perfect date. She will meet him again in a week, but she never shows up. He doesn't know her last name or any contact info and he's finding it impossible to track her down.

Since their date, show more something else amazing happens. He is approached about a movie being filmed in his theatre.

For awhile he's thinking this is the best week of his life, he believes he's met the woman he's going to marry and his theatre will be in a movie.

But when his love doesn't show up for their next date, he becomes obsessed with finding her.

Ok, I'm not saying he was creepy exactly, but he's a bit of a stalker at times. I am a romantic and I do appreciate that he didn't give up on this woman that he loved. But I would have liked if the portion of the book dedicated to their first date was longer, or that they'd been out several times atleast. I was a bit worried this poor guy would finally track her down only to realize she was just trying to blow him off. Wouldn't that have been awful?

Make me believe for sure that she is in love with him first, so I can get behind all of his efforts to find her again.

Just my personal opinion, as always. show less

One Evening in Paris is like a Woody Allen film in novel form. Sweet, quirky, utterly delightful. I loved all the plot twists and turns – and the fact that the whole story wasn’t revealed until the very end. Reading One Evening in Paris reminded me of my college days when I used to belong to the International Film Society. My friends and I would go watch grainy foreign films in a little theater and think that we were oh so sophisticated and mature. Oh, those were the days!

Sissy: I guess my friends Opie and John-Boy and I were too uncouth to belong to the International Film Society. And besides which, Woody Allen films are so annoying. While one of the characters in this book is meant to portray a Woody Allen-type person, it was so show more much more charming than any Allen film. Read full review at www.bubblebathbooks.net show less

Ho trovato la storia un poco surreale, ma l'ho divorato. Il grande pregio di questo autore è la leggerezza dello stile, per cui non è mai pesante e si legge velocemente e con piacere.
Un po' melenso, magari, ma un buonissimo romanzo romantico con lieto fine assicurato,che si legge d'un fiato.

Un libro dolce e molto romantico, che si dipana tra film d’essai e le strade di una meravigliosa Parigi.
Alain Bonnard gestisce nella capitale francese un piccolo cinema d’essai, il Paradis, dove ogni mercoledì si tiene una rassegna di film d’amore. Tra i consueti spettatori una ragazza bellissima che indossa sempre un cappotto rosso attira la sua attenzione, e quando finalmente troverà il coraggio di invitarla a cena i due si scopriranno innamorati come non mai. Quasi contemporaneamente un famoso regista vuole girare alcune scene del suo nuovo film proprio in questo cinema con protagonista una famosa e bellissima attrice, Solène Avril. Ma se da una parte le cose sembrano andare nel migliore dei modi c’è qualcosa che show more tormenta Alain: che fine ha fatto Melanie, la ragazza dal cappotto rosso, che sembra improvvisamente scomparsa nel nulla?
Una storia semplice e quasi scontata vivacizzata da un piccolo mistero che si scioglierà sul finire del libro ricollegando i fili spezzati dal tempo e dagli eventi.
Personaggi semplici e quasi in contrapposizione tra loro a cominciare da Alain, un sognatore, molto tenero e onesto e il suo amico Robert, vivace, energico, molto sicuro di sé, così come Mèlanie, la ragazza dal cappotto rosso, molto dolce, timida e schiva e Solène, la bellissima attrice, volitiva, brillante e seducente.
Una storia d’amore gradevole, leggera e molto sentimentale adatta per passare qualche ora in pieno relax.
Quattro stelline un po' stiracchiate. show less