Secrets of Paris

Passion and friendship get equal billing in this entertaining love story, shaded with dark undertones, from the author of Crazy in Love. Lydie McBride, a photographer's stylist, and her architect husband Michael move to Paris while Michael, on a cultural exchange program, redesigns a room in the Louvre. Lydie is still reeling from the shock of her father's recent death in a murder-suicide with the young woman who was his lover. As Lydie is befriended by sophisticated Patrice d'Origny, a young Bostonian married to the owner of a fashionable jewelry store, Michael begins an affair with an eccentric French biographer who is engrossed in her 17th-century subject, Mme de Sevigne. Asked to design the new d'Origny catalogue, Lydie decides to stage a ball in a nearby chateau. While working on their separate projects, she and Michael try to determine whether their once wholehearted love can be recovered. Lively and appealing characters--notably Lydie herself--the Paris setting and themes of betrayal and forgiveness distinguish this spirited romance. (June)