I am delighted to tell you about my latest novel, The Last Restaurant in Paris. Featuring a restaurant full of secrets, a long-lost grandmother, and a very dark legacy.

It began with the idea of inheritance. Some people might wish that a long lost relative has left them something of value. But what if what you inherit isn’t … wonderful?

What if your inheritance is a moment in history that can never be forgotten – what if you discover that you are related to one of the most evil women in Paris?

When Sabine Dupris discovers that she is now the owner of an old property, a former restaurant, that closed down forty years ago, where the owner killed all its customers one awful night, that dream quickly turns into a nightmare.

Everything she thought she knew about her family is turned around when she discovers that she related to someone she has heard of for all the wrong reasons. Marianne Blanchet. The woman who poisoned all her customers. On purpose. A woman so despised that forty years later, passers by still spit on the sidewalk and make the sign of the cross.

But what if everything everyone thinks they knew about her is wrong?

It’s out on 18 July 2022, available for pre-order here and to request on NetGalley now. Read on below for the full blurb.

I really hope you like it!

Love,

Lily x

SHE SERVED THE ENEMY. SHE SAVED HER PEOPLE

In enemy-occupied Paris, as the locals go to bed starving and defeated by the war, music and laughter spills through the door of a little restaurant, crowded with German soldiers. The owner Marianne moves on weary feet between its packed tables, carrying plates of steaming, wholesome food for the enemy officers. Her smile is bright and sparkling, her welcome cordial. Nobody would guess the hatred she hides in her heart.

That night, the restaurant closes its doors for the final time. In the morning, the windows are scratched with the words ‘traitor and murderer’. And Marianne has disappeared without a trace…

Years later, Marianne’s granddaughter Sabine stands under the faded green awning, a heavy brass key in her hand, staring at the restaurant left to her by the grandmother she never met. Sabine has so many questions about herself. Perhaps here she can find answers, but she knows she isn’t welcome. Marianne was hated by the locals and when Sabine discovers they blamed her for the terrible tragedy that haunts the pretty restaurant, she is ready to abandon her dark legacy.

But when she finds a passport in a hidden compartment in the water-stained walls, with a picture of a woman who looks like her grandmother but has a different name, she knows there must be more to Marianne’s story. As she digs into the past, she starts to wonder: was her grandmother a heroine, not a traitor? What happened to her after the tragic night when she fled from her restaurant? And will the answer change her own life forever?

A haunting and compelling story of love, strength, and sacrifice in Nazi-occupied Paris as one brave young woman risks everything to save the lives of those around her. Fans of The Nightingale, The Paris Library and The Alice Network will lose their hearts to The Last Restaurant in Paris.

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