Everyone thinks it will be over by Christmas. What we see through their four years of letters is that life changes people, and that life in war changes people all that much more.Īt the beginning, in those glorious and naive first months of World War I, Tom and Will volunteer to go off to war. Most of the story is told through letters, and occasionally telegrams, between Tom Harding and Evie Elliott, with occasional letters between Evie and her best friend Alice, Evie and her brother Will, and Tom and his father, and eventually between Tom and his father’s business manager. The heart of the story is correspondence. It’s not so much last Christmas in Paris, as in we spent last Christmas in Paris, although the protagonists certainly did, as it is, this is our last and final Christmas in Paris, because we shall not pass this way again. Much of that bittersweet flavor is in the title. Last Christmas in Paris is a bittersweet tale of World War I. With failing health, Thomas returns to Paris-a cherished packet of letters in hand-determined to lay to rest the ghosts of his past. Can love flourish amid the horror of the First World War, or will fate intervene?Ĭhristmas 1968. Frustrated by life as a privileged young lady, Evie longs to play a greater part in the conflict-but how?-and as Thomas struggles with the unimaginable realities of war he also faces personal battles back home where War Office regulations on press reporting cause trouble at his father’s newspaper business. Through their letters, Evie and Thomas share their greatest hopes and fears-and grow ever fonder from afar.

As Evie Elliott watches her brother, Will, and his best friend, Thomas Harding, depart for the front, she believes-as everyone does-that it will be over by Christmas, when the trio plan to celebrate the holiday among the romantic cafes of Paris.īut as history tells us, it all happened so differently…Įvie and Thomas experience a very different war.

New York Times bestselling author Hazel Gaynor has joined with Heather Webb to create this unforgettably romantic novel of the Great War.Īugust 1914. Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on October 3rd 2017

Last Christmas in Paris: A Novel of World War I by Heather Webb, Hazel Gaynorįormats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook

Last christmas in paris by hazel gaynor