Charming Young Man

It all started with a boy who loved the piano . . . They say Léon Delafosse will be France’s next great pianist. As a sixteen-year-old from a small country town, he knows making that happen will keep his family afloat. Even though he’s the youngest student ever accepted into the prestigious Paris Conservatory, there’s no way for an impoverished musician to make his way in 1890s Paris without an outside patron to pave his way. A young gossip columnist named Marcel Proust takes Léon under his wing, using the beautiful teenager as his own entrance key into high society. As the boys game their way through an extravagant new world, Marcel opens unexpected doors. When the larger-than-life Count Robert de Montesquiou-Fézensac offers his patronage, Léon’s dreams are made real. But the more absorbed he is into dreams of becoming France’s next great thing, the more he strays from the old country life he shared with his mother, his sister, Charlotte, and his best friend, Félix . . . a boy he might love. With each choice Léon makes, he must navigate a fine line between two worlds—or risk losing it all.