{"id":150272,"date":"2021-09-01T09:50:46","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T22:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=150272"},"modified":"2021-10-05T15:25:17","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T04:25:17","slug":"review-the-riviera-house-by-natasha-lester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2021\/09\/01\/review-the-riviera-house-by-natasha-lester\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: The Riviera House by Natasha Lester"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a><\/em><\/strong> delves into the brazen Nazi theft of priceless treasures from their national galleries and the private collections of Jewish families.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Natasha<\/a>

Natasha Lester<\/p><\/div>\n

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 G\u00f6ring. Hiding that she speaks German and working with the mysterious Rose Valland (a real-life heroine\/spy), she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u2019s stunned to discover a photo of the favourite painting that had hung on her childhood bedroom wall. What is the secret to her family\u2019s unknown past and what possible connection could there be to the detestable world of Herrman G\u00f6ring and the Occupation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two storylines are equally gripping as the mysteries that inexorably connect them are gradually and cleverly revealed. Along the way, both Eliane\u2019s and Remy\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014The Riviera House<\/a><\/em> by Natasha Lester (Hachette Australia) is out now.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Booktoberfest<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘An epic novel straddling genres of history, romance and mystery with equally gratifying agility.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":150277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6678],"tags":[715,723,13682,1974,2313,7161,7569,4484,13522],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/TheRivieraHouse-Social.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150272"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152973,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150272\/revisions\/152973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}