Review- Diana Biller's The Brightest Star in Paris

 

I loved The Widow of Rose House and I was super excited to get a book about another member of the adorable Moore family. 

Benedict, the brilliant doctor and Sam’s brother in Widow, returns to France for a conference. There he runs into the girl who had dragged him back from his grief twelve years before. The girl is now a prima ballerina for the Paris Opera Ballet. Amelie St. James has spent the last seven years pretending that she’s not being haunted by the past. Now she is being haunted by a literal ghost right when the man she never stopped loving reappears in her life. But Amelie’s entire life is built upon her saintly image, her future and that of her little sister depends on it. She needs help figuring out how to stop the hauntings. She recruits Ben since his brother Sam is an expert. She agrees to fake a relationship with him to keep the gossips from destroying her hard-won reputation. 

This was a gorgeously written book. But, in my opinion, it is not a romance. Yes it has a happy ending and yes there is one small love scene but the main characters spend most of their time apart. 

This book is brilliant as historical fiction or women’s fiction with strong romantic elements. I enjoyed the history. I knew nothing about the Prussian war and The Commune before reading this. I liked getting a backstage pass into the world of 19th-century ballet and I can’t help but love a historical set somewhere other than the UK. This book explores many difficult subjects including the careful balancing act even successful women were forced to perform. Complete disaster was always just one misstep away. 

But this story is Amelie’s and her journey through grief, the romance is very much secondary. Ben, so likable in the first book, is a peripheral character for the most part in his book. He could be plucked out of the book and it would not change the main story in any way. I found that his character was very bland and sadly underdeveloped, he was there as an accessory and I, unfortunately, didn’t get invested in him or the relationship.  

A second chance trope is really difficult for me to begin with because I feel like I miss the best part of romance: watching two people falling in love. Here the falling in love happens off the page. We get some flashbacks to Amelie and Ben’s beginnings but they don’t flesh their relationship out. So when the I love you came about halfway into the story I was yawning. Needless to say that the little bit of romance there was fell completely flat for me.

Like Widow this book also has paranormal elements. In this case, there are several ghosts and I wasn’t sure that they added much to the central story except serving as the vehicle that brings Amelie and Ben into close proximity. In the end, we get some reasoning for the haunting but it was so far into the story that it failed to make an impression. The ghosts are very prominent in the story at first but disappear somewhere past the halfway mark and then come back at the last half. There’s also a villain who is a constant threat and utterly evil. But that plot thread is pretty much dropped and I don’t remember if this plot point was even resolved at the end.

This was a very heavy book to read, almost relentlessly dark until the irrepressible Moore’s show up (best part of the book), and being in Amelie’s head almost the entire book was very difficult for me. 

It’s also really hard for me to rate because like I said it works beautifully as women’s or historical fiction. So I will rate it separately. As a historical romance, it’s a two-star read. As a women’s fic it’s a four-star book. So I’m going to land in the middle and rate it a three-star read.

I recommend this book if you enjoy history, super slow burns, friends to lovers, paranormal elements, and the heroine’s journey being the central part of the story. If you’re looking for a beautiful romance with a swoony hero read the first book.

⭐⭐⭐/5

🔥/5

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

Check the author’s website for the many TW’s.