?Captivating...Mah channels Kennedy and brings postwar Paris to life with exquisite detail and
insight.? -- People From the bestselling author of The Lost Vintage a rare and dazzling
portrait of Jacqueline Bouvier's college year abroad in postwar Paris an intimate and
electrifying story of love and betrayal and the coming-of-age of an American icon ? before the
world knew her as Jackie. In September 1949 Jacqueline Bouvier arrives in postwar Paris to
begin her junior year abroad. She's twenty years old socially poised but financially
precarious and all too aware of her mother's expectations that she make a brilliant match.
Before relenting to family pressure she has one year to herself far away from sleepy Vassar
College and the rigid social circles of New York a year to explore and absorb the luminous
beauty of the City of Light. Jacqueline is immediately catapulted into an intoxicating new
world of champagne and châteaux art and avant-garde theater cafés and jazz clubs. She strikes
up a romance with a talented young writer who shares her love of literature and passion for
culture ? even though her mother would think him most unsuitable. But beneath the glitter and
rush France is a fragile place still haunted by the Occupation. Jacqueline lives in a rambling
apartment with a widowed countess and her daughters all of whom suffered as part of the French
Resistance just a few years before. In the aftermath of World War II Paris has become a nest
of spies and suspicion deception and betrayal lurk around every corner. Jacqueline is
stunned to watch the rise of communism ? anathema in America but an active movement in France
? never guessing she is witnessing the beginning of the political environment that will shape
the rest of her life?and that of her future husband. Evocative sensitive and rich in historic
detail Jacqueline in Paris portrays the origin story of an American icon. Ann Mah brilliantly
imagines the intellectual and aesthetic awakening of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and
illuminates how France would prove to be her one true love and one of the greatest influences
on her life.
