The Last Dress From Paris by Jade Beer ~ Book Review

In 2017 London Lucille has a strong loving relationship with her grandmother so when Granny Sylvie asks her to go to Paris and bring back a priceless Dior dress that belongs to her, Lucille agrees to the task.  Thinking she'll only be gone a few days, Lucille goes against the wishes of her overbearing condescending boss to grant her grandmother's wish.  But when she gets to Paris she finds there is more to the dress retrieval than her beloved Grandmother has told her and when she finds mysterious initials sewn into the dress and some descriptive cards Lucille finds her time in Paris extended as one couture dress leads to another.

In Paris 1952, Alice is the wife of the British ambassador and her days are filled with planning extravagant parties and visiting her designer of choice, Dior,  for her clothing needs.  In her position she is to be seen and many look to her fashion choices.  Her husband is lavish with her clothing budget but not so much with his love and affections.  Lucille's takes strength from her lady's maid who has become her trusted friend.  But when a new person shows up at one of Dior's shows Alice must make some choices that can change the course of her life.

POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING AHEAD:

I have to admit this book was a total cover choice when I saw it at the library.  The cover is gorgeous but strangely enough the dress on the cover is not at all in the book.  I really dislike when publishers don't match their cover art with the actual story.  But anyway, this book was okay.  The writing was solid and the premise of the dresses intriguing and it had me googling what each dress mentioned actually looked like, none of which are the red dress on the cover.  But unfortunately the story became based on something I don't enjoy in my reading, infidelity, so it was hard to really connect with some of the characters for me in spite of the reasoning and had I have known that I wouldn't have picked it up. I don't know why I didn't clue into that from the description on the back.  I did like Lucille's story line and found myself engaged with her part of the story and I liked how her storyline played out.  And I did like the strong unbreakable friendship of Alice and Marianne, defying what their stations in life would have dictated.  

I found it very hard to rate this book as the writing was solid but it was personal taste for foundation of the story that brought it down for me.  Finally I rated it a 7/10.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  Read a book from my library holds