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Two Sisters

Rosie Whitehouse

C Hurst & Co, €27.52

ISBN: 978-1805262718

Two Sisters: Betrayal, Love and Resistance in Wartime France is a gripping true story of how two teenage Jewish sisters managed to evade being shipped off from France to an extermination camp, after this fate befell their mother who was murdered in Auschwitz. 

In the winter of 1943, Huguette and Marion were hiding in Val d'Isère in the French Alps when Huguette broke her leg on the ice. At great personal risk, a young doctor called Frédéric Pétri took her in and cared for her in secret.

Many years later, Marion's son married the author, Rosie Whitehouse, who eventually asked Huguette about her wartime experiences, and decided to track down the Pétri family. 

Frédéric Pétri had died in the 1970s, but there was a roundabout named after him in Val d'Isère. 

This book is about the two sisters and their different experiences, and also about the journey taken by the author as she researches a half-forgotten past. Huguette's memories of wartime France were very nuanced. She believed nobody was all bad. Marion's memories were very different. She remained angry and bitter, having experienced people turning a blind eye or even helping the Nazis.

The book therefore looks not just at how the sisters survived but at how Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­ reacted. Some were kind, some didn't want to know either way, but many were actively complicit. What made some people Resistance fighters and so many others collaborators? What made people become Nazis?

The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon

Sarah Steele

Headline Review, €11.96

ISBN: 978-1472270092

The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon is a feel-good read set on the French Riviera. The heroine, Florence Connelly, is going through her deceased grandmother's wardrobe when she finds a bunch of 1960s dressmaking patterns along with fabric samples for each one. Better still, there are photos of a mysterious beauty called Nancy Moon wearing the various frocks in a variety of different locations. 

A little research, and Florence discovers that Nancy Moon was a distant relation who took the boat-train from London to Paris in 1962 and was never seen again. Her own life in tatters, Florence decides to set out in Nancy's footsteps and see what she can uncover about this mysterious woman. 

Anyone who loves a bit of nostalgia, cosy mystery, and lovely descriptions of the South of France, will enjoy this book. It especially appeals to keen dressmakers who enjoy the passages about how to make a garment fit together seamlessly. Also, the patterns described really do exist and can be viewed via an online search engine.

Originally trained as a classical musician, Sarah Steele says writing has always been her passion. Although she lives in Stroud, her enthusiasm for all things French shines through. 

Henri Samuel: Master of the French Interior

Emily Evans Eerdmans

Rizzoli, €69.09

ISBN 978-0847861866

Renowned French interior designer Henri Samuel (1904-1996) said that the most successful designs looked accidental, as if no designer had ever touched them. His signature style mixed modernist paintings with Empire furniture, and Oriental objects; neoclassical chairs beside Plexiglas tables, for example.

He was so respected during his lifetime that he was called to advise museums including Versailles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the installation of period rooms.

The author, Emily Evans Eerdmans, is a design historian, as well as the principal of Eerdmans Fine Art gallery. She got her Master's in Fine and Decorative Arts from Sotheby's Institute of Art in London and has taught at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and the New York School of Interior Design. Her knowledge of the subject really shines through. 

The accompanying photographs give glimpses of interiors designed for Doris Duke, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, Susan and John Gutfreund, Valentino Garavani, and multiple Rothschilds and Vanderbilts. And if some of the older images are less than brilliant quality, that does not change the content.