“Paris Time Capsule” by Ella Carey

In 2010, an apartment in Paris was unlocked for the first time since 1966. It was included in the will of the granddaughter of the woman, Marthe de Florian, who originally owned it. The apartment included two surprises – an original painting of de Florian by Giovanni Boldini, and the furnishings, which were largely unchanged from the early 1900s.  

The apartment and what it contained were almost a perfect time capsule of the Belle Epoque, the 15 to 20 years before the start of World War I.  De Florian was a demimondaine who famous lovers included Georges Clemenceau, a prime minister of France. While she had been largely forgotten by history, the discovery of the apartment brought a spotlight to her life and times. 

 

Author Ella Carey was inspired by the story to write Paris Time Capsule, using the De Florian discovery as the basis for her story but changing some key facts. 

 

Catherine, or Cat, Jordan receives a letter from an attorney in Paris. Included with the letter is a key. The young New York City photographer discovers she has been left a legacy in a will of a woman she’s never met. The legacy is a Paris apartment. 

 

Once she arrives in Paris, Cat discovers the apartment has not been opened in more than 70 years. She explores the musty, cobwebby apartment, accompanied by Loic Archer, the grandson of the woman whose will left the apartment to Cat. 

 

Several mysteries need to be solved. Why did the apartment remained locked for 70 years? Why did Loic’s grandmother, the daughter of Marthe de Florian, make Cat the heir to the apartment? And why was the apartment abandoned intact in the first place? The answers take Cat and Loic to southern France and back to Paris. And along the way, Cat, engaged to a young establishment merchant banker in New York, finds she’s losing her heart to Loic.

 

Ella Carey

Ella Carey is the author of several historical novels. Paris Time Capsule is the first of three books in the Secrets of Paris trilogy, followed by The House by the Lake and From a Paris Balcony. She’s also the author of Secret Shores, Beyond the Horizon, The Things We Don’t Say, and the recently published A New York Secret. She lives with her family in Melbourne, Australia.

 

Paris Time Capsule is a mystery, a historical romance, and a contemporary love story, all wrapped into one hard-to-put-down novel.

 

Top photograph: Marthe de Florian, oil on canvas by Giovanni Boldini, via Wikimedia Commons. This was the painting discovered when the Paris apartment was unlocked in 2010.