A gripping new novel by Aberystwyth author Brian Jarman was inspired by his time working as a teacher in Paris.

‘Parisian Shadows’, out 28 March, follows Steff on his quest to find his aunt who disappeared in Paris after the Nazi occupation.

Brian is surprised that the Parisian Jewish wartime story went relatively untold, so he decided to do some research of his own.

When Steff finds an old photo of two young girls in his attic, he uncovers the existence of his mother’s sister, Céleste, who left their family during the Second World War.

Intrigued by his mother’s secrecy, Steff leaves his home town of Aberystwyth to work in Paris in the 1970s, embarking on a quest to find out what happened to Céleste. He is met with walls of silence from his grandparents, and frustration at every turn.

Steff starts to investigate the plight of the Parisian Jews in the 1940s, and is shocked to find there’s also a shroud of mystery surrounding their fate.

Will he be able to put the jigsaw pieces together?

Brian was born on a farm in Wales, the joint youngest of five brothers. He studied in London, Paris and Cardiff, and was chief feature writer for the South Wales Argus. He then worked for BBC radio, and public radio in America.

Brian, who has published five novels and has a publishing consultancy, said: “When I was a teacher in France in the 1970s I was astonished that so little was taught about the deportation of Jews from the country in the 1940s. My curiosity was piqued when I read my friend Carmen Callil’s book ‘Bad Faith’ a couple of years ago.

I started reading around the subject and visiting Jewish memorials and archives in Paris, and discovered that one of the major round-ups was in the 11th arrondissement in Paris, which I know very well. It was this area too that bore the brunt of the November 2015 attacks by the Islamic State cell which killed and injured hundreds of people, mainly young concert-goers. So ‘Parisian Shadows’ was a book I had to write as it had that compelling element of hidden history on your doorstep.”

‘Parisian Shadows’ (ISBN: 9781836282310, price £9.99) is available from Troubador, at: https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop/historical/parisian-shadows

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