A TALE OF PROVENCE AND PARIS

CHILDHOOD SWEETHEARTS, A WOMAN’S IMPROBABLE LOVE, TYRANNY OF RELIGION, FEMINIST DEFIANCE ..... FROM A PROVENÇAL VILLAGE TO PARIS OF LA BELLE ÉPOQUEA Tale of Provence and Paris is the second novel by Gautam Shah. The time is late 1800s. France has recovered from the war with Prussia, Bonapartist monarchy has ended, and tension between progressive forces and the Catholic Church is beginning to rise. The tale begins with the weekly market in the Provençal village of La Tour de l’Aigle. Two children André and Nicole make the market their playground and an arena for occasional pranks. André, the son of an educated widow of an army officer, is a prodigiously talented pianist. Nicole is the daughter of olive growers. Despite these differences, their fondness endures, and with time, the childhood playmates grow into a comfortable relationship of loyalty and love. André’s fortunes rise as the local nobleman Count Rochambeau pledges his patronage to launch the boy’s career in music. He enters the world of the count and his chateau, an alien world to Nicole that becomes the source of fearful apprehension in her innocent heart. André’s mother Paulette, an attractive woman of refinement and poise, finds an opportunity of her own for love that is at once improbable and, by necessity, must be concealed from the world.For a time, the lives of André, Nicole and Paulette follow a predictable path but are soon overwhelmed by colossal twists of fate that propel them into circumstances wholly unforeseen, leaving the reader breathless and thirsting for more. Like a master puppeteer, the author moves his characters through an intricate plot of unexpected relationships and enduring commitments, Catholic tyranny and feminist defiance, to a conclusion that leaves the reader wanting more. He brings alive his characters’ deepest emotions as they step through a mosaic of plots and subplots spread across the rural landscape of Provence and the urban vibrancy of Paris of La Belle Époque. The reader will travel alongside the three, and others, in their tumultuous journey down unlit trails, will rejoice in their interludes of joy, endure their jolts of trauma, and will delight in their triumphs. In bold brushstrokes on a sweeping canvas, against the backdrop of a bygone era, the author stunningly recreates lives, places and events whose images will linger with the reader long after the final page. Read more