Their secrets become hers, and soon she is caught in a scheme of betrayal and revenge that will plunge her into the darkness that waits beneath this glittering city of light. As this dark and powerful tale progresses, Maud is drawn further into the Morels' world of elegant deception. Sylvie has a secret addiction to opium and Christian has an ominous air of intrigue. Christian and Sylvie, Maud soon discovers, are not quite the darlings they pretend to be. No longer hostage to poverty and hunger, Maud can at last devote herself to her art. With a clean room, hot meals, and an umbrella to keep her dry, she is able to hold her head high as she strolls the streets of Montmartre. But suddenly the narrative (with its adroit evocation of early 20th-century Paris) has a bone-shaking twist. Quietly starving, and dreading another cold Paris winter, she stumbles upon an opportunity when Christian Morel engages her as a live-in companion to his beautiful young sister, Sylvie. The Paris Winter begins as an elegant Henry James-style novel of class and manners, with an innocent abroad finding herself up against more worldly (and corrupt) foreigners the naf here is an impoverished young English girl. While her fellow students enjoy the dazzling decadence of the Belle Epoque, Maud slips into poverty.

It took all her courage to escape, but Paris, she quickly realizes, is no place for a light purse. Their secrets become hers, and soon she is caught in a scheme of betrayal and revenge that will plunge her into the darkness that waits beneath this glittering city of light.There is but one Paris.Vincent Van GoghMaud Heighton came to Lafond's famous Academie to paint, and to flee the constraints of her small English town. No longer hostage to poverty and hunger, Maud can at last devote herself to her art.īut all is not as it seems.

Quietly starving, and dreading another cold Paris winter, she stumbles upon an opportunity when Christian Morel engages her as a live-in companion to his beautiful young sister, Sylvie. Maud Heighton came to Lafond's famous Academie to paint, and to flee the constraints of her small English town.

The paris winter by imogen robertson