The Secret Paris Cinema Club By Nicolas Barreau

‘The Secret Paris Cinema Club’ is the latest book by Nicolas Barreau.

Alain Bonnard, the owner of a small art cinema in Paris, is a dyed-in-the-wool nostalgic. In his Cin̩ma Paradis there are no buckets of popcorn, no XXL colas, no Hollywood blockbusters. Alain holds firm to his principles of quality Рto show films that bring dreams to life, make people fall in love. And Alain would do anything for his clientele Рparticularly the mysterious woman in the red coat who, for some time now, has turned up every Wednesday and always sits in row seventeen. What could her story be?

Finally one evening Alain plucks up courage to invite the unknown beauty to dinner. But just as the most tender of love stories is getting under way, something happens that turns Alain’s life upside down, shoving his little cinema unexpectedly into the public eye. So when the woman in the red coat suddenly vanishes from his life, the cinema owner can’t help but wonder if it is more than a coincidence. Taking matters into his own hands, Alain sets off in search of the stranger he has come to love – roll the opening credits for a timeless cinematic romance worthy of the Parisian silver screen

‘The Secret Paris Cinema Club’ was the first book that I read by Nicolas Barreau and I immediately fell in love with this upbeat Parisian tale of love and intrigue.

The story is seen from the lead male perspective Alain, a dapper French man with a love for art and romance who runs his own cinema called ‘Cinema Paradis’. Amongst the regulars that come to the shows, a woman in a red coat catches his attention and after plucking up the courage to ask her out, he then spends a wonderful evening with the enchanting Mélanie and immediately falls in love. But no sooner has Mélanie taken Alain’s heart, she then runs away with it. Upset that Mélanie has left him, he sets out determined to find her but he is distracted when a top Holywood director and one of France’s favourite actresses announce that they want to use Cinéma Paradis to film their new romantic comedy. Suddenly Alain is thrown into the spotlight as his cinema becomes under a media attack and his continued search for Melanie takes him down many unexpected avenues.

The story is sweetly written that flows at a lovely pace. It captures the beauty and the magic of Paris, with vivid descriptions of the city, the food and the culture, I almost felt that I too was sitting in the plush red velvet seats of the cinema with the fat businessman and the sad woman with the curly hair enjoying a romantic classic before emerging into the sunlight and walking home in the French sunlight.

One thing that I particularly found equally interesting was that it reminded me of the film ‘Inglorious Basterds’ by Quentin Tarantino, minus the language and violence but it is also set in parts in a french cinema and this was even referenced in the book.

‘The Secret Paris Cinema Club’ is a small compact book which could easily be absorbed in one sitting. It has a pretty striking cover that certainly stands out, designed in vibrant shades of pink and green and a list of French classic films that I would like to look into. With a charismatic lead and mysterious storyline line, that whisks you away to the city of love, this book is most definitely a captivating tale of intrigue.