The story started out strong but lost me towards the end. The modern day Ella was not a sympathetic character to me, and everything about her search for the past seemed a bit too easy, from her very quick pickup of French, to her affair with Jean-Paul, to how she found Marie. It was really not believable, too many holes in the story. Isabelle's story got short shrift, IMHO. All in all, in the end I was not satisfied with the book. I gave it three stars, but barely.