The Brightest Star in Paris by Diana Biller

He will also recruit for his new Brain Institute in New York. Benedict Moore travels to Paris to attend a conference and in the hopes of finagling a meeting with a renowned French brain anatomist. The Brightest Star in Paris is mostly melancholy when it comes to the romance and the ghosts are, for the most part, not scary. The Widow of Rose House was ominous and threatening when it came to the ghosts and lighter, fun and charming when it came to the romance. Like the first book, this book also contains some serious themes (albeit different ones) – poverty, starvation, addiction, parental death, war, PTSD, but unlike the first book it didn’t have a gothic feel to it. But then I thought, well of course there are ghosts and rolled my eyes at myself. So when the ghost arrived, I was a little surprised. I should have realised of course because the first book contained a ghostly subplot that The Brightest Star in Paris would follow that theme, but I admit, something – the cover perhaps or its absence of mention in the blurb – had me thinking otherwise.

Last year, your debut book, The Widow of Rose House was on my top reads list so I was excited to read your latest, which again features the eccentric Moore family – this time focusing on Benedict – Ben – the second son.

Kaetrin B Reviews / Book Reviews ballet / ghosts / Historical / Paris / PNR 5 Comments (Oct.OctoREVIEW: The Brightest Star in Paris by Diana Biller Still, Biller’s fans will enjoy the feminist romance filtered through familiar gothic tropes. Historically minded readers especially will take issue with how these characters speak, think, and act like modern Americans. The anachronistic-feeling Moore family offer significant mood whiplash, as their 21st-century sitcom antics do not mesh well with an otherwise dark story. Benedict Moore, Amelie’s first love, with whom she shares dark memories of the horrific traumas of the Franco-Prussian War the Siege of Paris, which ended the war and the 1871 Paris Commune, an insurrection that followed. Then she starts seeing the ghosts of women she once knew: Lise Martin, a murdered ballerina Rachel Bonnard, who was executed for arson and Violette, a cabaret singer and Amelie’s former neighbor. Exhausted and with an untreated hip injury, she’s grimly enduring the two remaining years until she can retire. James has made herself into a living saint in the eyes of the public in order to cover up her ballet company’s scandals. A prima ballerina in 1870s Paris is haunted by the ghosts of wronged women in this atmospheric sequel to Biller’s The Widow of Rose House.