I probably have to admit that I’m having suspicions that I’m turning into a lazy reader. So as such this many character and many background stories just proved too much.
Then afterword ( and I usually love reading the authors comments) proved as long winded as the book.
Very loosely based on a real event but too much of a jumble of real and imagined. Not one for me.

Emma Donoghue’s latest historical novel takes its inspiration from a famous photograph of a train crash at Montparnasse station in 1895. In the photo a steam engine has ploughed through the wall of the upper level of Montparnasse train station and sits nose first on the road. The story of The Paris Express is that of the passengers and crew of that train, some real, many imagined and their journey to Paris. And while some of the large cast of characters are interesting it is really unclear what Donoghue is trying to achieve with this novel other than just provide her own snapshot of a particular time and place.
The narrative of The Paris Express follows the train from its embarkation in Normandy through to Paris. The authorial eye ranges over the crew and the passengers from third class through to first class. Only a handful of these was known to actually be on the train, many of the others are real historical figures who Donoghue imagines onto the train in order to explore their milieu. This includes a performer called Annah Lamor who was also one of Gaugin’s muses, Fulgence Bienvenüe who came up with the idea for the Paris Metro, an anarchist called Mado, and Alice Guy who went on to be one of the first film directors. This is just a small selection of the huge cast that move through the narrative. Their stories are in and of themselves interesting but Donoghue dips in and out of their lives too briefly to get any more than a character sketch.
In the end The Paris Express, while interesting and packed with foreboding, does not amount to much. Donoghue herself admits, in a lengthy Afterword which talks about the backgrounds of the actual and potential passengers, that the accident was so minor (only one person died and it was not anyone on the train, and the train was back in service a few weeks later) that it was not even recorded in an annual report on the Railways. Historical fiction does not necessarily have to have a point, but so many of Donoghue’s other historical books (Haven, The Wonder, Learned By Heart) are invest deeply in the characters and are all so thematically rich that this effort seems the poorer as a result.

I love the way that Emma Donohue takes a real event & puts her spin on it. There are a lot of characters which is confusing but the writing draws you in.

In Emma Donoghue's "The Paris Express," she takes the real-life French railway disaster as her inspiration for a multi-character thriller/historical fiction. Donoghue assembles these characters (from various walks of life) to show how the disaster impacted everyone. She examines the disaster through an economic and sociological lens which may sound a bit dry, but it's fascinating to explore this event from all angles.

If there is a downside, it's that there are a lot of characters, and it can be a bit difficult at times to keep track of them. I would have preferred fewer characters. I enjoyed the book as a snapshot of another time, and as a recreation of an often-forgotten railway disaster.

I love a book based on a true story that gives you an insight not only into the event it covers itself but also into the time period it is set in. This is one of those books.

Emma has used a train crash in Paris in 1895 as inspiration for this novel. We follow the train’s journey from its starting point of Granville all the way through to its destination in Paris and we meet plenty of characters along the way. The book gives an insight not only into what a train journey at the time would have been like and the operations of one and of the stations it passed through but also of France in general. It hints at the general unrest in the country, at the change in the air and tells of the different social levels in the society.

I will admit I struggled with the different characters and the changes of scenes from carriage to carriage. This may, however, be due to the fact that I only had a digital proof and sometimes lay outs aren’t as clear as in printed versions. This made the story a bit disjointed for me but I finished the book as I was invested in the story and wanted to see it through to the end. I found the final section covering the actual event and the real life characters a great addition to give a fuller picture of the basis for the story.

Any reader familiar with Emma Donoghue’s remarkable dedication to historical research (seventh-century monks colonising Skellig Michael in ‘Haven’, anyone?) will not be surprised that she is delivering, as her latest novel, nearly 300 pages set entirely in one place (the engine and carriages of a speeding train) in its historical setting (1895, France) and that the action takes place exclusively within a seven-and-a-half-hour timeframe (just as she had done with three days in a Dublin maternity ward during the 1918 Spanish ‘flu epidemic in ‘The Pull of the Stars’).

In this latest, a commentary on fin-de-siècle social change, every one of the characters she introduces is vivid, technicoloured right up till the novel’s end. I found it easy – as always – to connect to all of Donoghue’s cast. It was only the excerpts from the perspective of the train engine that didn’t have me fully on-board (pun intended):

‘Engine 721 doesn’t take it personally. She is made of wood and metal, and her temperament is stoic. Besides, she recognises something kindred in Mado Petellier’s iron conviction and unstoppable momentum. The bomber believes the world men have made is terrible, and so it is. Nor can the train deny that there is a certain beauty in the idea of burning, since she runs on flame herself.’

There is great tension created over Mado’s radicalism, and the conclusion tears towards us from the opening words, since we know how this is going to end. That brutal picture still comes upon you at the close with a gulp!

‘That lunch bucket is an explosion waiting to happen. Its unstable elements sing out their longing so loudly, the train can hear them like a battle cry. All the force of combustion that makes an express the fastest vehicle on earth, this device has harnessed for instant havoc. It can take every part of an object, and every cell in the human body, and fire them in different directions.’

I realise there’s real history being dealt with, here, but I felt as little need to go and fact-check and verify her content as I did to Google Anne Lister’s relationships whilst reading ‘Learned by Heart’ (the novel that perhaps marks my reading high point as an Emma Donoghue enthusiast).

All in all, ‘The Paris Express’ made me gasp, smile, frown, jump, and sigh. All the best reactions, to one of my favourite authors.
My thanks go to Pan Macmillan for the ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

This is a good solid read, there is nothing deep or thought provoking about it but it is none the worse for that.

There is a fairly large cast of characters on the train but they are varied and, without exception, interesting. It was great to recognise some of them, pre fame such as J M Synge, and the Gaumont company. One of the characters has a tutor described as an austere Polish woman called Mme Curie!

Like the train, the story rattles along at a great pace. I enjoyed all the characters and their stories. I didn't get any characters mixed up, there was no repetition in their stories and it was a very entertaining read. I didn't actually realise until the very good afterword that the story is based on a real event.

There is perhaps a bit too much information about how a steam train works but I just skipped that.

Whilst I’m normally a big fan of this writer, I have to admit this book did not quite hit the mark for me. Based on an actual historical event, the story of a derailed express train certainly holds a lot of potential, but where it falls flat is the multitude of narratives (too many characters to keep track of, resulting in very little investment) that touch on the many lives onboard the train, but never really goes into depth with anyone. Had the characters’ stories been afforded the same level of detail as the endless descriptions of various train mechanisms, I’m sure it would left a more lasting impression. Whilst it’s clear the author has researched the setting meticulously, I didn’t care about the train as much as I did its passengers, and I just didn’t get enough about any of them to care. Whilst written beautifully, it is nonetheless a quick read, and not worth more than 3 stars.

The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.5 stars
Publication date: 20th March 2025

Thank you to Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for providing me with an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

It is 1895. A high-speed steam train is the emblem of progress. Industry and invention are creating ever greater wealth and poverty. One autumn day an anarchist boards the Granville to Paris Express.

I enjoyed this so much! This was well-written, propulsive (quite literally) and I couldn't put it down.
This book has a huge cast of characters, and multiple POVs that we cycle through quite swiftly - which can sometimes make it tricky to remember who's who. In this train, Emma Donoghue creates a microcosm of society, from the elite in their private carriage to the people crammed in third class. There was some interesting societal commentary about the political unrest in France at the time, and the train itself (or “herself” as Engine 721 is personalised throughout the book) is a symbol of the rapid industrialisation across the country.
As the train hurtles through the French countryside, we spend a little moment in time with all those passengers - we learn about their lives, loves, hopes, desires, despair and anger - whilst in the background, Donoghue subtly and skillfully ramps the tension up.
This book is based on a real-life event and (some) real-life characters - as such, the author’s notes are well worth reading for some fascinating history and context.

'The Paris Express' is Emma Donoghue's latest historical fiction novel. It is referring to the Montparnasse train disaster on 22.10.1895, where the fast steam train from Granville to Paris couldn't break in time and crashed through the Montparnasse train station wall.

In the novel we meet various characters who travel on the train to Paris, amongst them politicians, a pregnant woman, an anarchist and a painter. Whereas the travellers and workmen are well presented and give a great snapshot of French society at the end of the 19th century, it feels a little convoluted as there were too many characters without enough depth.

There was also a lot of technical information and detail about steam trains which I did enjoy. It showed how much research Emma Donoghue has put into her novel.

As always I enjoyed her writing but I found the book slow to get into. However in the last third it picked up the pace as the train workers struggled to avoid the inevitable.

It is a well researched and well written work of historical fiction.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for thr ARC.

If you love steam trains, quirky French characters and stories set around the fin de siècle, you might just love Emma Donoghue’s latest work The Paris Express.

While it chugged along for me, I found it too densely packed with detail on steam train engineering and characters whose lives seemed interesting but of whom the reader only getting a fleeting glimpse.

The novel is based on the real-life 1895 train crash of a steam train travelling from Granville to Paris, which was unable to stop as it approached its terminus at Montparnasse and crashed through the railway station wall onto the street outside.

The story is told in vignettes of the passengers’ lives - we meet a politician, a trainee physicist working for Marie Curie, a female anarchist, an unmarried pregnant woman, the train’s driver and stoker, a closeted gay man, Irish writer John Millington Synge, American painter Henry Tanner and many more.

It’s a fascinating at times insight into French life and society in 1895 at the turn of the 19th century, aspects of which were more progressive than in Ireland in 1985! However there is just so much detail on the ins and outs of steam trains and some dull dialogue. The last couple of chapters are thrilling though as the runaway train heads for the end of the line. 3/5 ⭐️

Many thanks to Picador Books for the #gifted advance copy. The Paris Express will be published this week. As always, this is an honest review.

I wanted to like this story but I only managed to get a few chapters in. Netgalley insists I leave a review to keep my rating up

Perhaps the main reason I had this as one of my most anticipated titles for 2025 in my Looking Forward post was my belated discovery last year of this author’s debut “Room” (2010) which knocked me for six and made it into my end of year Top 10.

Since then Emma Donoghue has favoured historical writing (I had previously also really enjoyed her 2016 tale of a potential miracle in nineteenth century Ireland in “The Wonder”) and here she is setting her latest novel in 1895 for a train journey by Engine 721 from Glanville to Paris, a journey scheduled to take just under eight and a half hours.

We know from the start that something is not quite right, there’s a moment of personification early on where the engine itself realises that this trip will end up in death and the narrative builds up towards this.

On one level this can be seen as a thriller which layers the tension on more of a will-they-do-it? basis. One of the passengers is harbouring a resentment that may tip over to violence. The novel is set at a time when Anarchists threatened to destabilise French society so all this feels quite plausible. On another level the novel is a character study of crew and passengers and the history of this period is allowed to shine through these individuals. It was this element that made me think of another Canadian author (Emma Donoghue also now lives in Canada), Suzette Mayr’s “The Sleeping Car Porter” (2023), a historical novel which dealt with the dynamics between a staff member and assorted passengers.

Some are on The Paris Express because of who they will become and what they will go on to do and some were really on this fateful journey. For this is a true event the author is relating but for maximum enjoyment I suggest you don’t look up anything about this, just allow the narrative to unfold and find out what the author has to say about it afterwards.

Good incorporation of history into the fiction, a solid set of characters who we meet again and again at intervals throughout the journey and the build up towards something we are not sure exactly what or how (unless you’ve looked it up) is handled impressively. This author knows how to tell and layer stories and this is another strong novel from her.

The Paris Express is published on 20th March by Picador. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

I had an interesting experience while reading The Paris Express. I hadn’t seen the blurb at all, so didn’t know what it was about, but while reading this historical fiction set – yes, on a train, Engine 721 to be precise, going from Granville on the north-west coast of France to Paris, I realised I recognised one or two of the character names and The Paris Express took an intriguing twist.

Author Emma Donoghue says in the book notes that she was inspired by the real 1895 Montparnasse train crash and while some of the characters on her version of Engine 721 were actually on the real train, she has woven in others to drive her story and capture the air of unrest and revolution that was prevalent in turn-of-the-century Paris. Arguably, still there today.

The first thing you have to get your head around is the high number of characters that are introduced in quite quick succession. Think Agatha Christie style when she’s giving us all the potential murderers in a closed-box situation. Although this isn’t a murder mystery.

The Paris Express is a snapshot of French society and human nature – from the rich and powerful in first class to those struggling to get by in third class and all in-between.

I really enjoyed the blend of characters like painter Gaugin’s muse, young revolutionary Mado with so much anger and drive for change but unsure where to really channel it, world-wise Blonska and the guard and drivers of the train, who were under such pressure to make sure the train was never late, at all costs…

The Paris Express conjures up really lovely flashes of the French countryside and the scenes depicting the train and how it all works are very insightful. There are one or two chapters from the POV of the train too, which adds to the charm of this read. A very pleasant way to spend an afternoon, and I felt I’d learnt a little more about this extraordinary moment from history too.

This was a read that gradually creeps up on you, a feeling that echoes the journey of this train to Paris. It seemed to get faster and more tense as time goes on. I felt like I was reading a contemporary of James Joyce or Virginia Woolf. Both Dubliners and Mrs Dalloway have the same cast of disparate characters all gathered on public transport. She captures the psychological effect of events on different characters. It reminded me of the incident in Mrs Dalloway where a car backfires; Mrs Dalloway is anxious about her dinner party so jumps when she hears the noise, but for Septimus Smith the backfire sends him back to the trenches in a second. We’re all looking at the world through our own filter and that’s definitely the case on the Paris Express. At first there are so many different people it’s hard to keep track but then I realised that there’s someone on this train with a secret. The reader is privy to a few internal monologues, so we know something nobody else does. The fate of every passenger on this train is in the hands of one person.

The author sits us perfectly in fin de siecle France with all of the turbulence that seems to come from the turning of the century. We can see in the passengers those that are still firmly stuck in the Victorian period and those who are firmly turned in the direction of the 20th Century. Some passengers we get to know well, while others only have a small vignette, or one beautifully timed and delivered line that takes everything we thought we knew and turns it on it’s head.. There are three classes of carriage across the train, with varying degrees of comfort but it railway travel isnt glamorous for anyone - even if they’re in first class and bring duck legs and creamed leaks in their picnic bag. Mado is the character who grabbed me, with her androgynous clothing and short hair she shingles at home with a razor. She’s clearly a feminist, but has also linked herself with the anarchist movement. Marcelle is another trailblazer, hoping to study medicine and inspired by Marie Curie. Blonska is a Russian immigrant who is remarkably perceptive at reading others and throws herself into action when a woman goes into labour.. There’s also a young woman called Alice, travelling as the secretary to her boss who owns a photographic firm. She’s clearly very creative and has great business sense, using the journey to convince him they need to make moving films. I loved that we weren’t spared the more disgusting details of rail travel, where ladies have a receptacle to relieve their bladder into while the men turn their heads and the train driver and stoker have to hang their bottoms over the side of the train. We also have a kindly grandfather who hops off the train at one stop to have swift liaison with another gentleman. In one line, we also learn that two staff members have a secret life we probably wouldn't have dreamed of.

The tension grows as the train nears it’s journey’s end at Montparnasse and the driver pushes the train’s speed to make up the minutes they’ve lost en route. As the final minutes pass the reader is aware that the secret may come out. You can almost feel the story coming off the rails! This was a great piece of storytelling and the ending is a huge surprise. It comes in a form you might not expect. I really appreciated the afterword and the incredible research the author has clearly done into the time period. This isn’t just a bit of costume and train interior - although they are wonderful details - it’s the ability she has to go beyond the stereotypical idea of that time and deliver something complex, multi-layered and real.

Unfortunately I didn't get on with this at all, which is such a shame because I love Emma Donoghue. The novel follows a series of characters on a doomed train to Paris, but it's essentially a set of portraits as we jump in and out of their minds. It takes so long for anything to happen, and they're so barely connected (with each one just being impressions, rather than really affecting each other) that I really struggled to read this. I'm not sure who this is for - maybe if you're fascinated by the time period this would grip you, but I struggle to see this finding a big audience.

I really enjoyed getting to know the characters and felt like I was travelling on the train journey with them. Also enjoyed the interesting snippets of social history in France at the time.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

Based on a genuine train crash, Emma Donoghue peoples the pages with the lives of passengers, all of whom are interesting, intriguing, and many unexpected and disagreeable. Also chronicled is the working life of the engineers – gruelling and poorly rewarded – and their pride and commitment to the timetable. The pace gathers momentum as the train steams to its destiny, all so well depicted.
I did find the tempo slow for the first third or so, and thought Blonsky’s insight a tad ‘stretched’ but the finale is quite something.

I love trains.
My favourite form of transport of all and prefer them to allow me time to watch the countryside and towns they pass, observe the passengers around me and reach a destination in some style I always think. Despite his politics Michael Portillo's numerous train journeys often show us the tracks, the destinations and the history behind them.
Here in Emma Donoghue's brilliant latest novel is a real moment in railway history at a time when rail travel and those huge steam engines had not just caused awe but dread. I recall Charles Dickens being involved in a train accident that forever reminded him and other potential passengers of those massive engines and their fast speed.
Trains can also be romantic - who can forget 'Brief Encounter' the film or mysterious with 'Murder on the Orient Express.'
The author literally transports us to the platform of Granville station in Normandy at 8.30 am on 22nd October 1895 when a daily train is leaving to make its way to its final destination in Paris.
People are in different carriages - First to Third Class and we are also introduced to the drivers, guards and those on all stations where passengers either arrive or depart.
There is the young boy travelling on his own needing to leave before Paris to meet his father, a man with his secretary running a photographic business, (it would be the photograph of the end of this journey that would spur the author to write about this train journey). artists, writers, oyster sellers and a young woman who has made a bomb and wants to make a point in a country that was experiencing revolution and anarchy.
All human life is here and as the train rattles through France we are totally engrossed with their lives, loves and longing. The plot seems to through us towards a tragedy that seems inevitable but as Paris approaches a totally different outcome is heading towards the buffers.
This is an extraordinary read, totally full of pace and a mix of rail history, scientific developments and as we are to discover real people who become part of the dramatic conclusion.
I'm not sure I have yet to read a bad book by Emma Donoghue.
She's right on track with this one.

Although I don't read a ton of historical fiction, Emma Donoghue is an author whose work I keep coming back to. She finds the most compelling moments in time to set her stories. The Paris Express tells the story of the last few hours of the steam train that crashed so dramatically at Montparnasse Station in 1895. Even if you think you don't know the incident, I promise you, you've seen the iconic photo!

This is less a story - the plot is: the train went too fast to stop in time and crashed - and more a series of character sketches, fleshing out the people we know were on the train and some who might have been. Donoghue colours in a snapshot of Paris at the fin de siècle, capturing how people in all stations of life might have felt. The writing really reminded me of the non-fiction work of David Grann and Erik Larson. Given how little story there was to this novel, I think Donoghue did a masterful job emulating the style of factual works that seek to humanize specific slices of history.

Thank you to Picador for providing me with an eARC to review!