Finding Magic and Love in a Small French Village

Edie Lane put her life on hold so that she could care for her dying mother who suffered with the debilitating disease, cystic fibrosis. She now hopes to make up for lost time. When she spies a want ad for an assistant manager for a little bakery in Paris, she decides to apply and is shocked when she gets the job. 

While her father supports her decision, saying goodbye at the Dublin airport is nonetheless emotional. Is she making the right decision, leaving her father who is also still in mourning? But Edie remembers how her mother talked about her own time in Paris. Deep down, she knows her mother is cheering her on.

Her adventure gets off to a rocky start. It turns out that the bakery, La Boulangerie sur la Rue de Paris, is not in Paris but in Compiègne, a small town one hour by train north of Paris. Finding the bakery’s number she manages to get the owner, Madame Moreau, on the phone. After identifying herself, Edie says, “je suis here, in Paris and your’e not.” Mme Moreau is not concerned, just tells Edie to get on the train. During the ride, Edie is distraught. She wanted to be in Paris, not a place she’s never heard of. She wonders if she will be back in Ireland by tomorrow.. 

Arriving in Compiègne, Edie is met by one of Mme Moreau’s employees, a young man who identifies himself as Manu. By the time they reach the bakery, the skies are dark. Mme. Moreau greets her and shows her to her room in the attic. It’s small, very cold, but charming. She receives a text from her father, asking if she has arrived safely. Responding, she tells him she’s settling into her lovely, new home. Not the first fib she will tell him.

During the night, Edie hears strange noises. When she awakens in the morning, she can smell the scent of warm bread and by the time she’s downstairs, Manu is loading the freshly baked loaves onto his bicycle for deliveries. When edie asks Mme. Moreau if she can see “where the magic happens,” she’s warned never to go downstairs. This only increases Edie’s desire to see how the bread is made and who exactly is the baker.

Sitting on the floor in her room, sorting through the papers she needs to open a bank account, Edie traces the pattern on the floor. One board its uneven and when she pulls it up she discovers a small notebook. Written in black script on the cover are the words Les Recettes and on the first page, Pierre, 1945. And there are recipes, the first Chocolat chard pour réchauffer l’âme, “hot chocolate to warm the soul.” No one is in the kitchen when Edie ventures in so she’s able to assemble the ingredients listed in the recipe, the most important, Vanillao, a small bottle sealed in wax. She prepares the hot chocolate and after one sip finds herself washed in “a mixture of ecstasy and contentment.” It’s not the last time Edie will find herself experiencing a magical moment in this unusual bakery.

While she’s still sorry she’s not in Paris, she is in France and begins to make the best of her situation. Recalling how she and her mother watched Audrey Hepburn films, she thinks about getting a gamine-like haircut. The hairdresser, Nicole, laughs and says everyone who comes to France wants to look like Audrey. Instead, she suggests a layered bob, which Edie admits she loves. Nicole invites Edie to a jazz bar where her husband, Johnny, plays. The venue hums with cool jazz and hard liquor. And Edie meets someone who will soon change her life, Hugo Chadwick, who is French and British, a wonderful dancer and soon has her reading Proust. When the bakery runs into financial trouble, however, Edie will have to makes some tough choices about her future. 

Evie Woods is adept at weaving fairy dust into her stories that, at their core, are very human. The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris is a worthy followup to her last book, The Story Collector. 

The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris
Evie Woods

Top photo: Bigstock

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