In All The Ways We Said Goodbye, Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White team up to bring us an epic tale of three women connected through time, love, heartbreak and war with the Ritz Paris as their silent witness.
We meet the three main characters of this novel by moving swiftly back and forth through time, from 1914 at the brink of WWI, to 1942 at the heart of WWII and finally, to 1964, a liberal turning point for humanity as the world rebelled against war and the societal constraints of the past.
First, there’s Aurélie, who’s torn between embodying her title as the Demoiselle de Courcelles — a living symbol of hope for the French — and openly loving a man who’s considered the enemy simply for being on the wrong side of the war.
Then, there’s Daisy, Aurélie’s daughter, brought up in the shadow of her parents who gave up so much in the fight to free France from the Germans, who wishes to find purpose in this new war and to be more than just the trophy wife of a French brute who may be conspiring with Nazis.
And finally, Babs, who’s lost meaning in her own life since her husband’s passing a year ago, and whose connection to these women is so much greater than she can even begin to conceive. That is until an American lawyer seeking answers about a botched secret war operation that took place nearly thirty years ago — one in which her husband was involved — contacts her and asks her to join him on a short-lived adventure at The Ritz in Paris. There they piece together the twists and turns of the lives of those who came before them — twists and turns that have led these two lonely people to their serendipitous meeting at this point in time.
These three women, spanning across three generations, have more than just The Ritz in common. Though it bore witness to an important part in all of their lives, it’s the sacrifices they made that make them kindred hearts. All of them loved and lost, but most importantly, they learned how to move on from their losses, be it for the greater good or for themselves.
Even though the premise of the novel is set up as three different love stories, All the Ways We Said Goodbye reads like a mystery thriller as clues are set up and we follow the trail to uncover unforeseen secrets. Even while weaving the many threads of the story together, Williams, Willig, and White take great care to always maintain each character’s voice in their own space and time. There isn’t one second in which we are confused, or in which we can’t imagine the exact place or era in which each of these three heroines might have existed. As the POVs change and we transition from one chapter to another, “Team W” — Williams, Willig, and White’s name for their team — finds an amusing tactic of linking one to the other through a word or artifact. They subtly keep reminding us, over and over again, that these stories, in spite of all the years between each one, are all connected. The concept that these women end up being more a part of each other than they could ever know is ever-present throughout the novel from beginning to end.
All the Ways We Said Goodbye is the physical proof that it takes rare chemistry and unparalleled teamwork to produce a work that is fluid, flawless, compelling and absorbing, with realistic, 3-dimensional characters, presented in a package wrapped in a piece of history. If you’re a lover of wartime stories, like me, then All the Ways We Said Goodbye is an excellent novel to revisit those parts of history that a reluctant, though curious, part of us wishes we had been able to witness.