Last Christmas in Paris: A Novel of World War I by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

              I told myself I would stop reading at 7:00.  Then it was 8:00.  Finally, I stopped reading about 8:17.  A few hours later I picked Last Christmas in Paris up again and read until the end.  Nothing else I had to do mattered.  I was going to read, and finish, this book.

                Structured in mostly letters and telegrams, Last Christmas in Paris is a great love story.  It is also a reminder as to how intimate letter writing can be.  Evie Elliott and Thomas Harding certainly found that out as they wrote to each other during the first World War.  As Thomas was the best friend of Evie’s older brother, Will, Thomas and Evie had known each other practically their entire lives.  They just did not see each other as anything other than friends.  Then Thomas and Will go off to war and the letters start.  Will is not so great at sending correspondence, but Thomas is.  As the war goes on, and the letters keep coming, Evie finds herself falling in love with Thomas.  The problem is, Thomas does not seem to reciprocate the feelings.  He certainly does not make any actions towards Evie (written, of course), and he does not pick up on any of the “hints” that Evie sends him.  Distressed, the only person Evie has to confide in is her friend Alice, a war nurse.  Alice just wants her friend to be happy, whether it is with Thomas, or Thomas’s cousin John.  Since John is still on the Homefront and is able to court Evie, Evie finds herself caught between the two men.  She likes John, but her true feelings are for Thomas.  Since Thomas does not seem to care for her the same way, Evie is not sure what to do.  And her mother’s great endorsement of John is not helping.

                Evie’s feelings for the two men is not the only thing that makes this a tense situation.  What is also a factor, is the fact that Thomas does not like his cousin.  There is an old family feud that plays a part in this, but a bigger factor is Thomas’s own experiences, which have led him to not liking this man.  Unfortunately, with Thomas away at war, there isn’t anyone with the proper experience to help his ailing father with his business, especially the newspaper.  John is really the only option, but there is great concern about how exactly John would run the paper.  When Thomas’s father dies, all the fears people had about John and the newspaper turn out to be right.

                Very quickly John puts the newspaper in peril with the unintentional help of Evie.  John encourages Evie to write columns about the war from the woman’s perspective.  When the newspaper starts publishing them, it, and Evie, get into trouble for the honest things she says.  By writing what is actually happening in the war, and not sugar coating it, Evie becomes a hit with readers, but not with the war office or the government.  Upset about Evie’s columns, they threaten to shut down the newspaper.  This does not sit well with Thomas, but it isn’t until John lies to him about his relationship with Evie that Thomas starts to see Evie in a negative light.  This lie causes a rift between Thomas and Evie that threatens to end the relationship they have built together, and have them never speak to each other again.      

                As much as I enjoyed this book, there were times at the end where I was tempted to throw it in aggravation.  Evie kept talking about how Thomas wasn’t responding to the hints she was sending about her feelings for him, but the hints were barely discernable.  Even looking for the hints I hardly found them.  How in the world was Thomas going to decipher them?  Also, Evie’s inability to see, or admit, John’s true colors got on my nerves.  Maybe it was because I had the outside perspective, and had more of Thomas’s business correspondence than Evie did, that I was able to see John’s nature faster, but I still had to wonder what Evie could possibly be thinking when she stayed with John, despite his bad behavior being right in front of her.

                I’m not saying Evie is the only one who caused aggravation.  Thomas is definitely not off the hook on that front.  When John lies to Thomas about Evie, Thomas refuses to even let Evie give an explanation.  He cuts off all ties with her, despite Evie’s attempts to explain the truth.  When Evie writes to him, Thomas does not respond.  It is this lack of response (plus his not stating his feelings for Evie) that leads to potentially dire consequences, which would have Thomas regretting his actions for the rest of his life.

                As I said, this is a really great love story, but not for just Evie and Thomas.  Will and Alice also find love (not with each other).  Also, each character in the story grew as a person.  Evie and Alice found strength they did not know they had, and Thomas found a side of himself he did not know even existed.  Finding love is what helped Will change.  All of the characters went through so many changes throughout the book, and it made them all stronger, better people in the end.  Sadly, as is to be expected, not all of the characters make it to the end of the story.  That is the sad consequence of war.