The Last Train from Paris
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley October 5, 2026
Author Suzanne Kelman
Distributor: Amazon
ISBN: 978-1837905355
Publisher: Bookouture
Release Date: 01 October 2026
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Beautifully told, heart wrenching and captivating the final story in The Paris Sisters Series, The Last Train From Paris is set in 1943 around the story of Marianne Cohen, who was killed in 1944 for refusing to betray the children in her care.
Charlotte Valette has created a plan to get five children out of Paris to the safety of her Aunt’s Chateau in the south of France. Carefully constructed, reviewed and reviewed again she is convinced the dangerous plan will work until she is stopped by the Gestapo as she is to board the train.
As the whistle blows and the train leaves the station she sees the four children, Jewish children she has sworn to protect crying, one desperately clawing at the window. A massive explosion at the station gives both her and Kurt, the German Jewish boys she still has with her, a chance to escape.
Move on to 2012 and a new generation of children, now adults are carefully wanting answers to the lives their parents lived as children in France, which was both terrifying and destructive. Esther, Sophie’s daughter, at the request of her mother, has discovered the other four ‘children’, inviting them to a week-long reunion to be held in an old Chateau in Fontainebleau, Southern France.
The reunion is a gamble, but is being guided by Dr Clara Weiss, a woman who is an expert in untangling the buried stories of survivors and their descendants. As the days slowly move along the trauma of the past is carefully exposed, until Laurent Giraud, an author, is discovered apparently writing a story of the same events in history but with a very different emphasis to what is being slowly and methodically revelled by the five survivors.
Who is telling the real story sets off a chain of events that see a collaborator discovered, a love story revealed and the courage of two people from vasty differing background, facing death and an uncertain future.
The Last Train From Paris as an absolute gem as it brings back a time in recent history that should not be forgotten. Ordinary people became enmeshed in extraordinary events, pushing them to the very limits and beyond of their skills and courage to try and create a better future for the children of tomorrow.
Although The Last Train From Paris from Suzanne Kelman is part of a saga it can also be read as a standalone book. Highly recommended.