The Girl at the Lion d’Or

by Sebastian Faulks Book 1 in the French Trilogy series.

First published 1989

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3.6(9,540)

France, 1936. Anne Louvet leaves Paris for a job at the faded Hotel du Lion d’Or in a Breton town, carrying the burden of a family scandal and a past she would rather conceal. There she meets Charles Hartmann, an older married lawyer whose experience of the First World War and disillusionment with public life have left him wary of easy loyalties.

Their affair unfolds amid provincial respectability, class division and the political unease of the French Third Republic. As memories of the previous war remain unresolved and Europe edges towards another crisis, Anne must decide whether love offers a genuine escape from the circumstances that have defined her life.