Historical Fiction · Free kit
Last Twilight in Paris
London, 1953: Louise Burns, settling into postwar domestic life, finds a heart-pendant necklace in a Henley-on-Thames secondhand shop — in a box stamped with the Paris department store Lévitan. She recognizes it from Red Cross work in Nazi-occupied Europe and from her friend Franny, who acquired it in Germany shortly before dying in a suspicious car strike. Louise travels to Paris with help from former boss Ian — and their unfinished romance — to trace the jewel through Lévitan’s true history as a glamorous store turned Nazi prison where Jewish prisoners sorted plunder from Jewish homes. In the wartime timeline, young Jewish Parisian Helaine Weil defies her parents to marry a musician, only to be imprisoned at Lévitan and torn from her husband; she entrusts the necklace to Franny on the eve of catastrophe. Jenoff braids mystery, female friendship, and resistance around a little-known occupation site inspired by real history.
“Some doors in Paris still look like fashion — until you learn what happened behind the display windows.”
Complete free book club kit
BookClubee may earn a commission from Bookshop.org purchases, which supports independent bookshops.
Plan your meeting
Last Twilight in Paris Icebreakers
Answer in under 30 seconds. These connect to the book’s themes without spoiling the story.
Personality Reveal
1. Are you more likely to buy something from a secondhand shop because it’s beautiful — or because it feels like it has a story?
Personality Reveal
2. When you hear “postwar normal,” do you imagine relief — or restlessness?
Personality Reveal
3. In a group project, are you the researcher, the connector, or the person who says “maybe we should stop digging”?
Funny & Light
4. What’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done for a clue that turned out to be a price tag or a monogram?
Funny & Light
5. If your life were a mystery novel, what mundane detail would detectives fixate on incorrectly?
Funny & Light
6. Would you rather inherit a jewelry box with no note — or a note with no jewelry?
Would You Rather
7. Would you rather have one perfect trip to Paris — or unlimited train day passes in your own country for a year?
Would You Rather
8. Would you rather read every placard in a museum — or people-watch in the café and invent backstories?
Would You Rather
9. Would you rather be known for solving puzzles — or for never losing a friend’s secrets?
Hot Take
10. Hot take: you can love historical fiction and still refuse to call WWII “a great backdrop.” Defend or complicate.
Hot Take
11. Hot take: housewife protagonists are underrated in thriller plots. Agree or disagree?
Hot Take
12. Hot take: jewelry in fiction is never “just jewelry.” True or false?
Personal Connection
13. Have you ever reopened a chapter of your life you thought was closed? No details required — just yes, no, or “still deciding.”
Personal Connection
14. Name a friend who changed your direction once — even if they never knew how much.
Personal Connection
15. What’s one skill from an old job you still use in everyday life?