The French Gift: A Novel of World War II Paris

Margot serves as a maid at Villa Sanary, a luxurious vacation home on the French Riviera, where an American heiress has been murdered on Bastille Day in 1939. Framed for the murder, Margot is sent to prison, where she meets Joséphine, who was captured by the Gestapo for her resistance efforts. Both are convicted and sent to a labor camp in Germany, where their friendship helps them get through the horrors of their imprisonment and debilitating work. In the present, Evie and her teenage son Hugo are visiting Villa Sanary, which Evie and her husband inherited from his beloved aunt Joséphine, who became a famous crime novelist after being freed at the end of the war. Now widowed, Evie is tasked with going through Joséphine’s papers and helping Dr. Clément Tazi curate a museum exhibition about Joséphine. Hoping to find a rumored unpublished manuscript, they soon discover further mysteries when they uncover Joséphine’s wartime diary.