Awarded the prix Nouveau Talent 2013, a sparkling debut novel!In the 1940s, Maurice is ten, and his older sister Diane is a happy, bubbly seventeen-year-old. In the solitude of their large home, Le Paradis, the days drag on during the "phony war". At last, in May, someone comes to visit: four Parisians fleeing the Nazis in the north. Their arrival will disrupt the peaceful tranquility of Le Paradis.Today Maurice is an old man, his memory is not what is used to be so he prefers not to talk. But Nathalie, his caregiver, finds the diary of his childhood and reawakens the memory of a timeless moment in Maurice's past, a ray of sunshine stolen from a dark, troubled time. What did these four Parisians bring to Le Paradis?