"The Paris Widow"

Kimberly Belle's new novel, The Paris Widow, “continues the author’s winning streak” according to Publishers Weekly. Her previous novels include The Marriage Lie, a Goodreads Choice Awards semifinalist for Best Mystery & Thriller, and the co-authored #1 Audible Original, Young Rich Widows. Belle’s novels have been optioned for film and television and selected by LibraryReads and Amazon & Apple Books Editors as Best Books of the Month, and the International Thriller Writers as nominee for best book of the year. She divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam.

Belle applied the Page 69 Test to The Paris Widow and reported the following:

Page 69 is smack in the middle of a pivotal scene, when Stella is being questioned by a lieutenant colonel of the Paris Police Force. Two days ago, her husband Adam disappeared after a bombing in a Parisian square, and now, the lieutenant colonel has come to deliver some troubling news about Adam and his business.

“…While Architectural Elements might be a legitimate business, it is only a very small part of how your husband makes his money. Monsieur Knox’s real business, the one that brings in a great deal of income, is dealing in looted and stolen artifacts.”

The accusation is so out of left field, so absurd, that I laugh. The sound is sharp in the tiny room, and loud in my own ears. But the lieutenant colonels’ expression doesn’t change. He stares back at me across the table.

I sit back abruptly. “No. that’s not true. Adam sells decorative wall panels and, and…antique mirrors. Cast-iron balcony railings like the ones here in Paris. He doesn’t steal these things. He buys them.”

While she fights it at first, this is the moment the realization really sinks that her husband hasn’t been entirely truthful, and it is very much at the core of what the story is about: secrets that can destroy a marriage, the sale and trade of blood antiquities, a highly lucrative—and highly illegal—enterprise. It’s a pivotal moment for both Stella and the novel, as it sends her on a mission for the truth despite the danger swirling all around her.

Visit Kimberly Belle's website.

The Page 69 Test: Dear Wife.

Q&A with Kimberly Belle.

The Page 69 Test: My Darling Husband.

--Marshal Zeringue