THE RED NOTEBOOK, what Queen Camilla calls “Parisian perfection”

THE RED NOTEBOOK
ANTOINE LAURAIN (tr. Jane Aitken & Emily Boyce)
Pushkin Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$13.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: In this bestselling novel, a bookseller pursues a mystery woman—known only through the jottings in her red notebook—through the streets of Paris

Bookseller Laurent Letellier comes across an abandoned handbag on a Parisian street, and feels compelled to return it to its owner. Quickly ruling out the police station, which is always best avoided, he turns the contents out onto his kitchen table to see if they hold a clue. The bag contains no money, phone or contact information. But it does yield a small red notebook, full of handwritten thoughts and jottings that reveal someone Laurent would very much like to meet. From the lists of likes and dislikes, things noticed and things felt, emerges the portrait of a woman who might just be his soulmate.

But without even a name to go on, and only a few of her possessions to help him, how is he to find one woman in a city of millions? He’ll have to turn to his daughter, who helps him decode the possessions and sends him on a madcap journey around the French capital.

Meanwhile, in an anonymous hospital room, fragmentary thoughts float through the mind of a woman in a coma. She thinks she’s called Laure, and she has some strong opinions and painful memories – but will she ever wake up and get a fresh chance at life?

Soaked in Parisian atmosphere, this lovely, clever, funny novel is the perfect French holiday read!

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Author Antoine Laurain (Vintage 1954) is a major bestseller in the UK. Given how much y'all like those Japanese weird-bookshop-soulmate-finding books, why haven't you gone all-in for this guy?

The absolute perfect one-sitting read, a novella about a bookseller in Paris turning detective in the wake of a violent crime he knows nothing about. His motive is to find the owner of a red notebook full of her jottings but noticeably devoid of a name or an address.

What happens to Laurent the bookseller as he reads the notebook is the magical sense that the writer is his soulmate, long lost other half, all those romantic notions that plague us harder in warm weather. He uses the list, with his daughter's help, to scour the city to "reunite" with this dream woman he's never met.

This gives Author Laurain a chance to rhapsodize about his native Paris. This he does with a facility I can but admire from a distance; he evokes Paris as a living city not a tourist theme park in just over 150pp! It gives the reader as lovely an experience as going there does without the hassle of plane travel.

The resolution isn't mysterious; or the point, really. It's a story about how a decent guy can act stalkery, but get away with it by knowing he's treading a really fine line, adjusting his expectations, and still managing to find who he's looking for. He does nothing to indicate he thinks he's got a right to his mystery love's returned affection. He is honest throughout with himself and all around him about his intentions but never claims he is entitled to anything from the woman he doesn't know just because he's fallen for her.

Honestly impressive feat on Author Laurain's part. Still it *will* trigger some, so be advised it's in the story. I was a bit less impressed with the way the PoV shifts between Laure, the woman, and Laurent were handled. It takes little enough to put a break in the text; nothing literary was gained by not having one. I dinged a half-star for positive mention of c-a-ts. *shudder*

A lovely summer vacation in Paris with little fuss. What's not to love about that?