Paris by Starlight Robert Dinsdale

   

PARIS BY STARLIGHT BY ROBERT DINSDALE 

Hardback published by Del Ray 5th November 2020

Every city has its own magic.

Every night on their long journey to Paris from their troubled homeland, Levon’s grandmother has read to them from a very special book. Called The Nocturne, it is a book full of fairy stories and the heroic adventures of their people who generations before chose to live by starlight.

And with every story that Levon’s grandmother tells them in their new home, the desire to live as their ancestors did grows. And that is when the magic begins…

Nobody can explain why nocturnal water dogs start appearing at the heels of every citizen of Paris-by-Starlight like the loyal retainers they once were. There are suddenly night finches in the skies and the city is transforming: the Eiffel Tower lit up by strange ethereal flowers that drink in the light of the moon.

But not everyone in Paris is won over by the spectacle of Paris-by-Starlight. There are always those that fear the other, the unexplained, the strangers in our midst. How long can the magic of night rub up against the ordinariness of day? How long can two worlds occupy the same streets and squares before there is an outright war? 

My review 

Paris by Starlight by author Robert Dinsdale is the bestselling novel of The Toy Makers that was his first venture into magic. Paris by Starlight is a warm-hearted and beautiful a very well written adult fairytale full of fantasy and magic. 

Paris by Starlight is a beautiful tale of love and acceptance set in a magical yet familiar Paris. It’s just the perfect book to curl up with during our miserable winter. Paris by Starlight would make a welcome gift. The beginning threw me straight into the book. 

Esme is forbidden to open her bedroom shutters, that her father built to block out the night. The stories Esme loves are the ones her father tells her each night aren’t they full to bursting with courageous girls doing forbidden things? With Esme ‘s father telling her once upon a time stories this reminded me of when I was a little girl and my late father told me once upon a time fairytale stories, until I fell off to sleep. 

You can tell how talented this author is when he sets character Levon in an uncertain voice to tell a story. Levon began in English to start the story…..Past the forests of midnight, so the old stories say, a boy lived alone where the dark magic held sway. He’d been vilified, exiled, spat on and stoned for he was a pauper, who just hadn’t known, that pauper can’t ask for the hand of a queen, that a pauper must live life unheard and unseen. So they’d driven him off from our glittering tide, to an anchorage deep in the radiant wild.

This is not how it was, in that time long ago. We were bravest k then. We were nobel and bold. So the start of this tale is a terrible thing a lost, lonely pauper, who couldn’t be King.

Come sail with me, come sail with me, out across the land locked sea.

Isabelle had heard this tale before it was one of Maia’s favourites, the story of the boy who fell in ove with the moon.

Paris in Starlight will appeal to fans of Robert’s previous novels like The Toymaker. And if you haven’t read any of his previous novels like me, you will enjoy Paris by Starlight. 

I would like to thank penguin random house fir sending me this amazing hardback to read and review.

About author Robert Dinsdale 



Robert Dinsdale was born in North Yorkshire and currently lives in Leigh-On -Sea. He is the author of three previous critically acclaimed novels. 

THE HARROWING, LITTLE EXILES, and GINGERBREAD.

His bestselling novel THE TOYMAKERS was his first venture into magic.