paid leave

Tiffany Tavernier

Sabine Wespieser Éditeur, 256 pages, 2026

Why you should take a look at it:
√ An immersive historical novel
√ A finely tuned blend of social and personal narratives
√ A literary page-turner with cinematic precision

Summer 1937. Emma, a Parisian factory worker and single mother, takes her first-ever vacation after years of hardship and sacrifice. Persuaded by Luis, her late husband’s anarchist friend, she travels with her son Julien to the seaside town of Biarritz—where she experiences her first train ride, her first glimpse of the ocean, and the unsettling freedom of paid leave.

But the beach is far from peaceful. As tensions flare between working-class vacationers and an aristocratic family determined to defend their “private” shore, Julien’s fierce political convictions draw the two families into conflict—and unexpected intimacy. Against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, the lingering scars of World War I, and the class struggles dividing 1930s France, unlikely bonds begin to form.

Over the course of fifteen transformative days, Emma slowly sheds the weight of factory life and discovers something she never believed could be possible: her own desires, her own voice, and a chance to reclaim herself. Set entirely along a windswept Atlantic beach and unfolding with cinematic precision, Tiffany Tavernier’s novel is a story of emancipation, love, and survival in a rigid environment.

Paid Leave is both a love story and a bracing portrait of a post-war divided society.

Tiffany Tavernier is a novelist and screenwriter. She has written many books. This is her 4th novel published by Sabine Wespieser Éditeur.