With each successive historical novel, Perth-based author Natasha Lester continues to up the ante with the obvious quality of her historical research and dual-narrative storytelling. Set during the oppressive WWII Occupation of France, The Riviera House delves into the brazen Nazi theft of priceless treasures from their national galleries and the private collections of Jewish families.
Natasha Lester
Eliane Dufort works for the Louvre in 1939 and soon finds herself forced to identify and catalogue these stolen works, readying them for shipment to secret Nazi repositories or to the private collections of Hitler and Göring. Hiding that she speaks German and working with the mysterious Rose Valland (a real-life heroine/spy), she’s determined to secretly record the whereabouts of the artworks and feed it to the French Resistance, despite the constant threat of torture and death that would befall her, her colleagues and family if discovered.
In the present day, Australian vintage fashion influencer Remy Lang, devastated by a recent family tragedy, moves to a beautiful villa bequeathed to her on the French Riviera to face her grief. There, in a catalogue of Nazi stolen artworks, she’s stunned to discover a photo of the favourite painting that had hung on her childhood bedroom wall. What is the secret to her family’s unknown past and what possible connection could there be to the detestable world of Herrman Göring and the Occupation?
The two storylines are equally gripping as the mysteries that inexorably connect them are gradually and cleverly revealed. Along the way, both Eliane’s and Remy’s passionate love stories are played out with all their inherent dangers, pitfalls and dramas, giving the reader an epic novel straddling genres of history, romance and mystery with equally gratifying agility.
—The Riviera House by Natasha Lester (Hachette Australia) is out now.
The Riviera House
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Paris, 1939 While working at the Louvre, Eliane Dufort falls for talented painter Xavier. But when the Nazis occupy the city, Xavier leaves for England and Eliane must send her sisters to the country. Broken-hearted, she finds herself working with the mysterious Rose Valland on a dangerous secret mission for the French Resistance: to record all the priceless national treasures the Germans are stealing.
Present Day Desperate to escape her grief, Remy Lang arrives at a stunning private estate on the French Riviera. While working on her vintage fashion business, she discovers a catalogue of artworks stolen during World War II...
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