To Capture What We Cannot Keep

Beatrice Colin’s book To Capture What We Cannot Keep is described as Captivating and bold, a haunting love story of 1880's Paris and I found it a delightful and easy read interweaving Haussmann's new Paris, the Eiffel tower, 1889 World Fair and the Panama Canal. 

It’s February 1887 and young Scottish widow, Caitriona Wallace (Cait), is acting as chaperone to two wealthy Scottish charges, Alice and James, when by perchance she meets Émile Nouguier in a hot air balloon in Paris. Émile is the chief engineer working on the Eiffel Tower and part of the bourgeois social class so any future that Cait and Émile aspire to, is constrained within the social strata of their time.