The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre braids espionage, fashion, and a broken-but-unbowed heroine together into one fascinating tale. Natasha Lester weaves a triple-stranded delight!"—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye

“Natasha Lester has done it again with this sumptuously written page-turner! Alix St. Pierre is everything that makes an admirable heroine – independent, plucky, and clever as the story spans from the fashionable world of Dior in Paris to the fascinating intrigue of international espionage in neutral Switzerland. The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre is a captivating novel that readers will absolutely adore.”

“A remarkable novel… [that] is both daring and compelling. Lester weaves a spellbinding portrait of a woman who knows how to survive—and how to win. … The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre[is]a wonderfully human and utterly gripping work of historical fiction.”

The novel kept me up at night, turning the pages faster and faster.

Beautifully written and intimately researched. Magnifique!

This meticulously researched novel is about the lengths people will go to protect one another, and a love that lasts a lifetime. The Paris Secret is a tear-jerker, so stock up on tissues, sit in a quiet corner and don't move until you've finished this extraordinary book.

Will delight fans of Kate Morton or anyone in need of a gorgeously wrought . . . tale of love, loss, courage, and compassion.

2022-11-16
A young woman working in Paris in the aftermath of World War II is haunted by the consequences of her work as a spy in Lester's sumptuous historical romance.

Australian author Lester moves back and forth through time as she follows orphaned Alix St. Pierre, raised in Los Angeles by wealthy friends of her late French parents, from her post–boarding school, prewar life in Paris to her years in Switzerland working for the Office of Strategic Services under the direction of Allen Dulles and her postwar career as a publicist for up-and-coming fashion designer Christian Dior. Determinedly self-sufficient Alix is haunted by guilt for the role one of her key informants during the war, code-named “La Voce,” may have played in the deaths of her fiance, Bobby, and one of the Italian partisans with whom she worked. Determined to bring La Voce to justice, she forms an unlikely alliance with New York publishing heir Anthony March, described by one of Alix's friends as “very louche and luscious.” The two grow increasingly attached as the search for their dangerous target proceeds. The various plotlines don't mesh seamlessly: While Lester appears to be doing her dutiful best to deal with the atrocities of the war years and the grim experiences of the women and men who must cope with them, her writing comes alive while telling the stories of Dior and those who worked with him, and it's hard not to wish she'd given herself more time with that fizzy subject matter. The budding romance between Alix and Anthony, during which Alix swoons over Anthony's manly form and hidden sensitivity while instructing herself to remain independent, seems tacked on from another, steamier, novel entirely. Readers may find themselves skimming the thoroughly researched but often plodding World War II sections in hopes of returning to Alix's admittedly more frivolous but decidedly more fascinating life in postwar Paris.

One life would be plenty.