This story describes an eight-hour train ride from the Normandy coast to Paris’ Montparnasse station on October 22, 1895. Over the roughly 8 hour trip the story of this Paris Express unveils the intricacies of both the steam engine itself and the passengers who happen to be traveling that day. The interaction of a young, bomb-carrying female anarchist,french dignitaries, a pregnant woman due to deliver imminently, the onboarding of a designer car that makes the train late—all contribute to the angst of the train’s ultimate disasterous arrival in Paris. Like a steam engine, the story is slow to start with the development of the characters but when the fuel is added, the pace of each increases to such a speed that you won’t want to put this book down. Brilliantly developed and “expressed.”
The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue, (List Price: $26.99, S&S/Summit Books, 9781668082799, March 2025)
Reviewed by Easty, Ernest & Hadley Booksellers in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
