Monday 18 March 2019

✪ The French Photographer ✪ Natasha Lester ✪




Release date: 26th March 2019



Inspired by the incredible true story of Lee Miller, Vogue model turned one of the first female war photojournalists, the new novel by the bestselling author of The Paris Seamstress

Manhattan, Paris, 1942
: When Jessica May's successful modelling career is abruptly cut short, she is assigned to the war in Europe as a photojournalist for Vogue. But when she arrives the army men make her life as difficult as possible. Three friendships change that: journalist Martha Gellhorn encourages Jess to bend the rules, paratrooper Dan Hallworth takes her to places to shoot pictures and write stories that matter, and a little girl, Victorine, who has grown up in a field hospital, shows her love. But success comes at a price.

France, 2005: Australian curator D'Arcy Hallworth arrives at a beautiful chateau to manage a famous collection of photographs. What begins as just another job becomes far more disquieting as D'Arcy uncovers the true identity of the mysterious photographer -- and realises that she is connected to D'Arcy's own mother, Victorine.

Crossing a war-torn Europe from Italy to France, The French Photographer is a story of courage, family and forgiveness, by the bestselling author of The Paris Seamstress and A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald.



Copy received from Hachette Australia for an hones review - thank you

Oh my, Natasha Lester knows how to write amazing stories.

Before you start reading, google Lee Miller Hitler bathtub for a bit of an idea of what kind of woman our leading lady, Jess May is inspired by.

I just started singing Pop Musik by M as I was writing this, as our story takes us from New York and all across Europe during the last couple of years of WW2.

I was drawn right into this story, and swept away with Jess and the other female war correspondents, who tackled not only war, but misogyny and sexism every day.

She caught the beauty of war, along with the pain and suffering and horrors - I found myself googling people and places as I was reading, as I needed to get more of a visual of the places she was writing about.

Told both in the 2000s and during the war, it was wonderful to see the links form and get uncovered between The Photographer of today and of the amazing people surviving the atrocities.

I couldn't help but turn each page to find out where she was next, what she was capturing, what emotion I was going to feel next.

This story has also made me interested about reading more of the ladies like Martha Gellhorn, Lee Miller and their ilk.

Thank you Ms Lester for another amazing story.


   






Natasha Lester worked as a marketing executive before returning to university to study creative writing. She completed a Master of Creative Arts as well as her first novel, What Is Left Over, After, which wont the T.A.G Hungerford Award for fiction.  Her second novel, If I Should Lose You was published in 2012, followed by A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald in 2016, Her Mother's Secret in 2017 and the Top 10 Australian bestse3ller The Paris Seamstress in 2018. The Age described Natasha as "a remarkable Australian talent" and her work has been published in numerous anthologies and journals.

In her spare time Natasha loves to reach writing, is a sought after public speaker and can often be found playing dressups with her three children.  She lives in Perth