Plum Blossoms in Paris-Sarah Hina

Plum Blossoms in Paris
Sarah Hina
Medallion, Aug 1 2010, $15.95
ISBN: 9781605421261

Andy, her boyfriend in high school, college and graduate school, unceremoniously dumps Daisy Lockhart. Heartbroken as she never saw it coming and assumed as her only boyfriend she ever had, they would always be together. Daisy, unlike her Henry James’ namesake, travels to Paris rather than Rome. There the American meets writer Mathieu, who grieves the recent death of his mother.

.Mathieu and Daisy become lovers. He shows her a side of the city that few Americans ever see especially the arts and the legends that make Paris what it is. As they remain together, Daisy knows she delays the inevitable of choosing between being an American in Paris or an American in America.

This is an entertaining contemporary relationship drama in which Paris owns the story line. The city is seen mostly through the admiring, adoring and to a lesser degree disapproving eyes of the American in Paris. The lead couple is a wonderful cross Atlantic pairing, but more so the blossoming Daisy; as readers will wonder whether Daisy will follow the dreams of her heart or the American dreams she left back home.

Harriet Klausner