The Lost Carousel of Provence

I really enjoyed the interweaving narratives, which were more complex than the book blurb had led me to believe. I also loved the setting, of course! But even more than that, it was really sweet to see the way the characters came together. A lovely rainy afternoon read.

Cady is off to photograph old carousels in France, and submit for a book that is being put together. But along the way, she is going to find more than just carousels, but maybe even find who she is in the process...

This was a great read, and I really enjoyed it!

This was a perfectly charming book with a gorgeous setting and some interesting characters, but I found that the family “mystery” wasn't all that mysterious and that some of the characters were far more interesting than others.

I also found some of the things introduced early on were not really addressed realistically- namely the twin sources for the protagonist's grief were kind of abandoned narratively and never fully “resolved,” not that grief can truly resolve, but the author didn't come to a satisfying fulfillment of that particular thread of character development.

Finally, I found that some of the secondary characters got far more fleshing out than others - Fabrisse was a fully developed person, but Jean-Paul was less so, and the hints we got about him were interesting so it was disappointing that we never got the whole story.

Ultimately this story was charming, and the historical flashbacks were really great. But overall I found that there were things left unfinished in the contemporary storyline.