Product Description

Enter the world of Olivier and Madison Malin, glittering inhabitants of Paris's  exclusive  Left Bank. The Malins' life together with their daughter is the stuff of dreams – and carefully-selected celebrity magazines.
Madison is a film star: her beauty, talent and perfect accent hiding her Texan roots, and the fact she's just turned forty. Her husband, Olivier, is the darling of the sophisticated Left Bank: philosopher and media personality, he craves adoration (and is a little too willing to return it).
Everything seems perfect – if a touch pretentious –  until the moment new English nanny, Anna, appears at the doors of their Rue du Bac apartment. Anna unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that will endanger their charmed lives - in ways no-one could have foreseen...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #178977 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Synopsis
Enter the world of Olivier and Madison Malin, glittering inhabitants of Paris's exclusive Left Bank. The Malins' life together with their daughter is the stuff of dreams -- and carefully-selected celebrity magazines. Madison is a film star: her beauty, talent and perfect accent hiding her Texan roots, and the fact she's just turned forty. Her husband, Olivier, is the darling of the sophisticated Left Bank: philosopher and media personality, he craves adoration (and is a little too willing to return it). Everything seems perfect -- if a touch pretentious -- until the moment new English nanny, Anna, appears at the doors of their Rue du Bac apartment. Anna unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that will endanger their charmed lives - in ways no-one could have foreseen...

About the Author
Kate Muir is a weekly columnist in The Times magazine, and has worked as a foreign correspondent in Paris, New York and Washington, D.C. She was born in Glasgow and now lives in North London with her husband and three children. Left Bank is her second novel.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic and evocative - take me to Paris!
Since visiting Paris for the first time a couple of years ago I have been fascinated by anything Parisian and am turning into quite a Francophile! Thus what prompted me to buy this book.

Kate Muir writes a rich descriptive tapestry evoking the Parisian cafes,the elegant ladies, the romantic men and essentially the spirit of Paris. All the smells of the rich coffee and freshly baked bread came wafting under my nose and made me want to teleport myself over there to be in that lovely environment again. All the while she entwines a very romantic story into this and I found it perfect as an 'escape novel'. This is a definite must buy if you love Paris as much as I do. Sigh.......

Absolutely dreadful - but I still read it to the end
**Contains slight spoilers** Bought this for 25p at a charity shop so wasn't demanding much for my money. For the first half of the book it was a fun diversion on the bus into work. Depiction of Paris incrediably stereotypical (I lived there when I was 21 myself) but of Parisians themselves quite familiar if one-dimensional. The main issue with the book is the ghastly characters. You start loathing Madison, liking Anna, being slightly bored by Olivier. You end, disbelieving Madison, being totally disappointed in Anna and still being bored by Olivier. It was just weird like Kate Muir wanted the reader to develop amnesia half-way through the book or like someone else (pervy bloke) wrote the second half. What was the deal with the visit to see Anna's dad at the end? Nothing was resolved - we find out she's pregnant but don't get any thoughts from her about how she feels about this. For the first half we hear her inner mind/thoughts but then she becomes a secondary character, the other woman only observed through the eyes of Olivier - and thus reduced to descrptions of her lovely legs etc. Load of rubbish - good job my 25p went to a good cause. It will be going back to the charity shop at the weekend!

Trez Predictable and Gauche
I was seduced by the beautiful cover (tut tut) but the pages between were a bitter disappointment;

Handsome Philosopher, his beautiful and self-obsessed wife, their emotionally neglected daughter. The pretty nanny....the affair, oh quelle surprise!

The batty lady with the pet sparrows was the best character and she throws herself off the roof.

Dark, but not delightfully so.