A Paris apartment
(Book)

"A novel" - cover.

When April Vogt's boss tells her about an apartment in the ninth arrondissement that has been discovered after being shuttered for the past seventy years, the Sotheby's Continental furniture specialist does not hear the words "dust" or "rats" or "decrepit." She hears Paris. She hears escape. Once in France, April quickly learns the apartment is not merely some rich hoarder's repository. Beneath the cobwebs and stale perfumed air is a gold mine, and not because of the actual gold (or painted ostrich eggs or mounted rhinoceros horns or bronze bathtub). First, there's a portrait by one of the masters of the Belle Epoque. And then there are letters and journals written by the very woman in the painting, Marthe de Florian. These documents reveal that she was more than a renowned courtesan with enviable décolletage. With the help of a salty (and annoyingly sexy) Parisian solicitor and the courtesan's private documents, April tries to uncover the many secrets buried in the apartment. When the things she left bubbling back home begin to boil over, April knows that both she and Marthe deserve happy finales.