Meet Me in Paris
Meet Me in Paris
By: Kristin Harmel
[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2026]
“‘Take some chances! Life isn’t just about making all the smart, safe moves.’”
Well dang.
Unpopular opinion: these are not good love stories.
I have loved every historical fiction of Harmel that I have read. Apparently she’s been itching to write a book like Love, Actually and finally did with Meet Me in Paris, but it was highly disappointing.
First of all, haven’t we all seen Taken?! (which happened in Paris, mind you…) A mom does not tell her 23-year-old daughter to go out and find that waiter she thought was attractive and have some fun in the city and to just wake her up whenever she gets home. And if a guy keeps watching you leave your house and finally asks you if he can paint you, no, you do not do this. You don’t go with him to places he does not divulge and only says, ‘just trust me.’
This book is full of red flags.
Yes, of course these men you just met are all very sweet and look at you like you’re the only one in the room and make you feel special and say all the things you want them to say… they want something from you.
I think the whole take some chances thing and not always do the safe thing means try a new career, unfriend-zone your best guy friend because you do love him and it’s okay to risk the friendship if he could be your husband, move to a new country to learn a new culture, be vulnerable and share the new song or book you wrote and have been afraid to. It doesn’t mean go be alone with strange men in a foreign country because maybe in a perfect world you could marry them and everything will work out!
Harmel loves Paris and the summer she spent there changed the trajectory of her life, but, man, she just went alllll in on the whole ‘city of love’ stereotype of Paris.
All these people from all walks of life are in Paris to find someone to sleep with… I mean fall in love with.
Logically, sex is either a base instinct, a hunger that needs to be satiated, or it’s a cherished intimate connection we were made to have between two committed people. You can’t do both. Harmel tried and it’s a mess.
It felt like Harmel’s primary objectives while writing this book were as follows: 1) make it like Love Actually, 2) put it in Paris, 3) check as many diversity boxes as I can, 4) did I mention it should be in Paris?
Some people hated all the different storylines and characters to keep track of. I didn’t even mind that. I get the concept. But I only vaguely cared about two of the stories and even then they both had pieces I didn’t like.
She usually writes such good stories that capture the time period and engage a whole range of emotions, but there just wasn’t much here. It just felt sad. In a non-romantic way.
It basically felt like the theme was: forget about your past relationships, there’s something new and better in Paris!
“Something about Paris brought love to the surface, made people open their hearts in ways they never had before, made lovers out of strangers.”
Sure, two of the characters’ relationships involved affairs, so yeah, those might be worth moving on from. But couldn’t Harmel give us even ONE relationship that involved a husband and a wife that were drifting apart but rekindled their love in Paris? No. She could not. No redeemed love. Just out with the old, in with the new.
We get:
Henry and Celeste- Henry is 100 and his wife died years ago, but it has ALWAYS been Celeste for him (the woman he fell in love with back in WWII) who actually didn’t die back then like he thought and even though she has dementia she will for sure still be in love with him too
Melanie (Henry’s grandaughter) and Gilles- Gilles has a mistress (because I guess French people just expect that?) and Melanie has to decide if she will give him another chance
Amandine (the mistress)- I don’t know why we get chapters from her POV because we never circle back to her in any significant way… what was the point of that?
Julia and Jackson Quick- Julia got divorced (obviously) and is dying from cancer so she’s taking one last trip with her 23-year-old daughter, Piper (who is obviously single and ready to mingle) and also Julia is ready to mingle… with the American, trying-to-have-a-tour-comeback-rockstar Jackson Quick who pretends to be Sam
Piper and Waiter-guy- Piper and the waiter lock eyes when he pours her water and it. is. the. truest. love. And of course he knows poetry and stuff.
Shelby and Aussie-bartender-guy- Shelby is having a divorce party— where you haven’t actually signed the papers for the divorce with stupid Brandon-who-loves-the-yoga-instructor-because IVF-isn’t-working, but you still fly to Paris with your two best friends so you can get drunk a lot and hopefully find a rebound for a night or two. Shelby wasn’t going to go crazy like her friends, but then the bartender was Australian and really cares about her well-being so I guess we will do it after all.
Kayla and Nadim- Kayla takes care of Celeste and she needs a romantic love story too, so yes Nadim can paint her. Kayla’s there to try to have a relationship with her dad, but he’s actually just a jerk so let’s just fall in love with the man who stalks me outside my house and knows about cheese and make this relocation worth it
Did I miss anyone?
Oh yeah. Here’s the real kicker.
Lou and George- They are Vietnam war vets, best friends since they served together, in Paris on a trip for Vietnam vets. Both of their wives have passed away, but one stroll by the Eiffel Tower and actually they’ve loved EACH OTHER this entire time, let’s kiss each other now. Just completely out of nowhere. This one made absolutely zero sense to me.
The Notebook callback with Henry and Celeste could have been intriguing if we spent more time on their history and we didn’t have to just throw Henry’s actual wife out the window like she didn’t even matter that entire time.
I also would have spent more time on Julia coming to terms with her terminal illness and wanting to share with Piper everything she won’t be able to once she’s gone. This one was the emotional one for me. That could have been a whole book.
They could have leaned harder into the ‘When it is dark enough, you can see the stars’ Ralph Waldo Emerson poem and how “it reminds us that when things are at their worst, there’s always light. You just have to remind yourself to look up and see it.”
But instead it’s just a little piece and it ends up being more about each of their love interests than a meaningful time together.
I will admit that I can see how readers who have personally gone through a hard divorce that involved an affair might resonate with the characters wanting to move on from that and find someone who actually cares about them. That their life isn’t over because their marriage is, that they are not less of a person.
There is definitely something to be said of that. The divorce rate makes me sad and I hate how so many of them involve abuse or affairs. But even then, I would prefer to read about them finding love without roaming the streets of a foreign country and sleeping with the first guy who ‘makes them feel special.’ That just doesn’t feel like the fresh start I would want for them. I would want something better, something real and lasting.
Harmel assures us, even though it’s only been a few days, it’s all real. But it’s not. We know it’s not. It’s more fantasy than romance at this point.
We also need to talk about the songs. They were not good. The best songs don’t usually do exact rhymes in an ABAB pattern, and if they do, it’s like once. For good songs you need close rhymes, you need variance. The songs felt like a poem I would have written in high school.
That’s probably a dumb thing to care about, especially because maybe if you could hear the song it wouldn’t seem so bad, but when you just read the lyrics it felt like it was jarring you out of a mediocre adult romance book into a mediocre juevenile romance book— which seems like it wouldn’t be a big jar… but it was at LEAST pickle-sized!
Recommendation
If you love new and exciting things (in Paris nonetheless) and love when you get to throw away something you’re tired of, and you loved the movie Love, Actually, then you might enjoy this book.
If you prefer love stories that are more realistic, have more redemptive qualities— and better songs— then I would recommend passing on this one.
It feels wrong to give a Kristin Harmel book such a low rating— I still love all of Harmel’s historical fiction that I’ve read and will 100% read her next historical fiction novel— but this one just wasn’t for me. I think there are way better love stories out there.
[Content Advisory: 0 f-words, 1 s-word; some closed door romance- except for the mistress chapters which are slightly more descriptive; a random LGBTQ relationship for like five minutes]
**Received a ARC via NetGalley**
This book just released July, 2026. You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.
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