the last hours in paris book review

• ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

THE LAST HOURS IN PARIS

by Ruth Druart ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 19, 2022

A vivid exposé of war and its dislocations.

This World War II saga explores issues of parenthood, justice, and retribution.

Druart’s second novel unfolds in two timelines, taking place in the 1940s and 1960s. At the book’s outset, in 1963, Élise has been living in apparent exile from her Paris roots, in a remote Breton village with a mysterious old woman named Soizic. Joséphine, Élise’s 18-year-old daughter, unearths her birth certificate and learns what her mother had postponed telling her: A man with a German surname is her father, not, as she had been told, her mother’s fiance who died fighting for France. Not understanding that her parentage was not only a source of disgrace, but of danger, Joséphine is angered by the deception and vows to track down her father. By 1944, Élise, her mother, and sister have endured four years of Nazi occupation. The way in which Paris has been devastated on so many fronts is viscerally evoked. Élise is part of a clandestine operation that arranges passage to Switzerland for Jewish children. At a bookshop, Élise meets Sébastian, a bilingual German soldier whose mother was French and who, with the glaring exception of his uniform, can pass as French. Sébastian finds the duties of his posting repugnant—acting as interpreter during Gestapo interrogation sessions and translating denunciation letters in which Parisians turn in their Jewish neighbors. Sébastian interferes when French police harass Élise in the bookshop, where he is an unwelcome customer. He takes escalating risks to win Élise’s trust and, ultimately, her love—rescuing her from the Gestapo and helping to save several children from deportation. Joséphine’s journey of discovery uncovers a tragedy of errors. Sébastian and Élise seem too innocent—unconvincingly so—to realize the depths of depravity into which both occupiers and occupied can sink. Their misplaced optimism will have disastrous consequences for each. But although Sébastian’s complexity will emerge only later, these characters command sympathy, to the point that readers will be exasperated by their missteps.

Pub Date: July 19, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-5387-3521-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022

HISTORICAL FICTION | ROMANCE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | HISTORICAL ROMANCE | GENERAL ROMANCE

Share your opinion of this book

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

New York Times Bestseller

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

More by Kristin Hannah

BOOK REVIEW

by Kristin Hannah

More About This Book

PERSPECTIVES

BOOK TO SCREEN

THE FAMILIAR

by Leigh Bardugo ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 9, 2024

Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.

In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.

Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.

Pub Date: April 9, 2024

ISBN: 9781250884251

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024

FANTASY | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | HISTORICAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FANTASY

More by Leigh Bardugo

by Leigh Bardugo

by Leigh Bardugo ; illustrated by Dani Pendergast

• Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
• News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
• Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
• Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
• Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
• More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
• About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

• Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Contact us: 1-800-316-9361 or email [email protected].

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.

• Bookreporter
• ReadingGroupGuides
• AuthorsOnTheWeb

The Book Report Network

Sign up for our newsletters!

Regular Features

Author spotlights, "bookreporter talks to" videos & podcasts, "bookaccino live: a lively talk about books", favorite monthly lists & picks, seasonal features, book festivals, sports features, bookshelves.

• Coming Soon

Newsletters

• Weekly Update
• On Sale This Week
• Spring Preview
• Winter Reading
• Holiday Cheer
• Fall Preview
• Summer Reading

Word of Mouth

Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, the last hours in paris.

• About the Book

From the author of WHILE PARIS SLEPT comes a story of great love, betrayal and redemption set in WWII and 1960s France and England.

"Words are power. They can bring you down, lift you up, make your heart soar, make you fall in love. Or make you hate."

Paris, 1944 . Elise Chevalier knows what it is to love...and to hate. Her fiancé, a young French soldier, was killed by the German army at the Maginot Line. Living amongst the enemy, Elise must keep her rage buried deep within.

Sebastian Kleinhaus no longer recognizes himself. Forced to join the Third Reich and wear a uniform he despises, he longs for a way out. For someone, anyone, to be his salvation.

Brittany, 1963 . Reaching for the suitcase under her mother’s bed, 18-year-old Josephine Chevalier uncovers a secret that shakes her to the core. Determined to find the truth, she travels to Paris where she learns the story of a forbidden love as a city fought for its freedom. Of the last stolen hours before the first light of liberation. And of a betrayal so deep that it would irrevocably change the course of two young lives life forever.

The Last Hours in Paris by Ruth Druart

• Publication Date: April 4, 2023
• Genres: Fiction , Historical Fiction
• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• ISBN-10: 1538735229
• ISBN-13: 9781538735220

• Member Login

The Last Hours in Paris

Written by Ruth Druart Review by Edward James

The four-year occupation of France by the Germans in WW2 must be one of the most intensively fictionalised episodes in history. It takes an inventive author to find a new perspective on this well-surveyed landscape. Ruth Druart is such an author, as she has already shown in her previous novel, While Paris Slept .

Both novels are as much about the aftermath of the Occupation and the healing of old wounds as about the Occupation itself. The Last Hours in Paris begins in the last few weeks before Paris is liberated in August 1944. It describes the savagery of the liberation as the population rise up against the retreating Germans and their French collaborators and how the supposed collaborators and their children fare in their post-war lives.

This is a love story of a French girl and a German officer, about divided loyalties, savage retribution, enduring prejudice, and a form of redemption. It is structured as a dual narrative with the events of 1944 set beside the return of the lovers’ grown-up daughter to Paris in 1963 to explore the past her mother kept hidden. This is an engrossing and psychologically complex novel which helps to explain why the Occupation still so fascinates us.

APPEARED IN

REVIEW FORMAT

Share Book Reviews

Latest articles

Dive deeper into your favourite books, eras and themes:

Here are six of our latest Editor’s Choices:

Browse articles by tag

Browse articles by author, browse reviews by genre, browse reviews by period, browse reviews by century, browse reviews by publisher, browse reviews by magazine., browse members by letter, search members..

• Search by display name *

What's Better Than Books?

Book Reviews, Author Interviews, Guest Posts, Ratings, and More!

#BookReview The Last Hours in Paris by Ruth Druart @grandcentralpub #RuthDruart #TheLastHoursinParis #GCPInsider

Paris 1944 .  Elise Chevalier knows what it is to love . . . and to hate. Her fiancé, a young French soldier, was killed by the German army at the Maginot Line. Living amongst the enemy, Elise must keep her rage buried deep within.

Sebastian Kleinhaus no longer recognizes himself. Forced to join the Third Reich and wear a uniform he despises, he longs for a way out. For someone, anyone, to be his salvation.

Charged, poignant, and absorbing!

The Last Hours in Paris is a passionate, moving tale set in France during 1944, as well as 1963 that takes you into the lives of Elise Chevalier and Sebastian Kleinhaus, two people from different backgrounds whose forbidden love will risk their safety, freedom, and ultimately change their lives forever.

The prose is eloquent and polished. The characters are courageous, driven, and resilient. And the plot, including all the subplots, unravel and intertwine seamlessly into an alluring tale of life, loss, family, tragedy, desperation, secrets, danger, friendship, parenthood, separation, survival, war, and love.

Overall, The Last Hours in Paris  is a rich, evocative, heart-wrenching novel by Druart that grabs you from the very first page and is sure to be a big hit with historical fiction lovers everywhere. It is undoubtedly one of my favourite novels of the year, and just like her previous novel, While Paris Slept , I highly recommend it.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

About Ruth Druart

Ruth Druart grew up on the Isle of Wight, leaving at eighteen to study psychology. In 1993 she moved to Paris, the city that inspired her to write While Paris Slept. There she pursued a career in international education and raised three sons with her French husband. She recently left her teaching position, so she can write full time while running her writing group in Paris.

Photo courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Share this:

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Great Reads & Tea Leaves Substack

Review: the last hours in paris.

Title: The Last Hours in Paris

Author: Ruth Druart

Publisher: 12th July 2022 by Hachette Australia

Pages: 443 pages

How I Read It: ARC book

Genre:   historical fiction, World War II, romance

My Rating: 4 cups

1940s: Elise is a young French woman secretly helping the resistance in German-occupied Paris. Sebastian is a young German soldier working as a translator. They meet, fall in love, and are relishing in the unforeseen happiness they have found in one another, despite being on opposite sides of the war. After liberation, however, the young couple is tragically torn apart, with Sebastian arrested by the French resistance and Elise captured and shamed as a ‘collabo’ by her own people, before being sent to Brittany for her own protection.

The lovers are parted, each believing the other to be lost forever. 

1960s: Elise and her 18-year-old daughter, Josephine, live in Brittany, France, with Brigitte, a gruff and bitter Frenchwoman who took Elise in after the war. Josephine has always been told that her father was a Frenchman who died when she was a baby—but when she discovers she is, in fact, the daughter of a German soldier, she travels to England to find out more about her real father. To her shock, she learns he is not dead, but living in the U.K. where he settled after the war and made a new life with his wife, Margaret, an Englishwoman who knows nothing of his past.

When Josephine reveals that her mother Elise is still alive, Sebastian must make the most difficult decision of his life: honor his duty to his new family, or return to his first great love?

My Thoughts

Much like her first book, While Paris Slept , this is a dual wartime historical fiction narrative with an enticing twist that poses difficult questions. Ruth has once again delivered her readers with a tale that is uniquely moving and sure to pull at your heartstrings. 

‘It's a funny thing, nationality. What does it really mean to be French? Or to be German?’

Inspired by family history, I loved the character of Sebastian - an ordinary man with unbearable choices. Forced to become part of the German army as a translator and in so doing, partake in an ethos he did not believe in. Elise became his reason for living. The Last Hours of Paris is about love, loss, sorrow and hope. Much like her first novel, Ruth takes you on a journey through Parisian war torn streets where near impossible decisions will need to be made. It will be difficult to have an ending that can avoid heartbreak. 

‘… he hardly knows himself. He's never been free to make his own choices. He

was an obedient son who became an obedient soldier. But there's more to him than that. He's a troubled soul.’

This is a story about all the victims of war and the ultimate cost of following your heart. Like I said, it raises difficult questions for which there are never any easy answers - but I love that it makes you think. Emotional turmoil involving family, lovers and in time, their children. This is a well written story ranging from the days of occupation, to liberation to the ramification of collaboration. Historical fiction fans are sure to find The Last Hours in Paris an appealing book. 

‘Not excuses, Élise. Reasons. When you get to my age, you see the world differently, you realise there's the story and then there's the story behind it … don't be so quick to judge.'

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

Ready for more?

We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.

• Facebook Icon
• Twitter Icon

The Last Hours in Paris: A powerful, moving and redemptive story of wartime love and sacrifice for fans of historical fiction

By ruth druart read by daphne kouma read by ben jacobson read by jess nesling.

7th July 2022

Price: £21.99

Fiction & Related Items / Historical Fiction

Select a format

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

Newsletter Signup

Get recommended reads, deals, and more from Hachette

By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

Book Review: ‘The Last Hours In Paris: A Novel’ By Ruth Druart

by RedCarpetCrash | Jul 16, 2022 | Books | 0 comments

I loved this book. It has everything you want in a WWII novel. A love story, tragedy, sacrifice and secrets. If you’re a fan of historical fiction/WWII novels, this one is for you. In 1963 Josephine is about to turn 18 and wants to get a passport and go to London on a school trip. Her mother Elise doesn’t want her to go and is always evasive about her past and Josephine’s father. When Josephine finds her birth certificate, she sees the name of a different man as her father, she was told it was someone else. She flees to Paris and her aunt looking for answers. Via flashback to Paris in 1944, Elise works for a bank and is living under German rule. She’s helping to smuggle childred out of the city and has become friendly with a young German officer who doesn’t believe in the cause. They soon fall in love and as the allies arrive, they’re betrayed and he’s taken away and soon after Elise finds out she’s with child. She’s sent away to raise her child and live her life. Back to Paris in 1963 Josephine learns shocking secrets about her father and the past and it changes everything and sends her on a journey of discovery. Be prepared for an emotional journey.

You can pick up The Last Hours In Paris in stores on Tuesday, July 19th from Grand Central Publishing.

• Recent Posts

• Watch Trailer For ‘Touch’ In Theaters Friday, July 12th - April 24, 2024
• Philly: Win Passes To An Advance Screening Of ‘The Fall Guy’ - April 24, 2024
• Watch Trailer For ‘Blink Twice’ In Theaters Friday, August 23rd - April 23, 2024

Advertisement

Supported by

Taylor Swift’s ‘Poets’ Arrives With a Promotional Blitz (and a Second LP)

The pop superstar’s latest album was preceded by a satellite radio channel, a word game, a return to TikTok and an actual library. For her fans, more is always welcome.

• Share full article

By Ben Sisario

Taylor Swift was already the most ubiquitous pop star in the galaxy, her presence dominating the music charts, the concert calendar, the Super Bowl, the Grammys.

Then it came time for her to promote a new album.

In the days leading up to the release of “The Tortured Poets Department” on Friday, Swift became all but inescapable, online and seemingly everywhere else. Her lyrics were the basis for an Apple Music word game . A Spotify-sponsored, Swift-branded “ library installation ,” in muted pink and gray, popped up in a shopping complex in Los Angeles. In Chicago, a QR code painted on a brick wall directed fans to another Easter egg on YouTube. Videos on Swift’s social media accounts, showing antique typewriters and globes with pins, were dissected for clues about her music. SiriusXM added a Swift radio station; of course it’s called Channel 13 (Taylor’s Version).

About the only thing Swift didn’t do was an interview with a journalist.

At this stage in Swift’s career, an album release is more than just a moment to sell music; it’s all but a given that “The Tortured Poets Department” will open with gigantic sales numbers, many of them for “ghost white,” “phantom clear” and other collector-ready vinyl variants . More than that, the album’s arrival is a test of the celebrity-industrial complex overall, with tech platforms and media outlets racing to capture whatever piece of the fan frenzy they can get.

Threads, the newish social media platform from Meta, primed Swifties for their idol’s arrival there, and offered fans who shared Swift’s first Threads post a custom badge. Swift stunned the music industry last week by breaking ranks with her record label, Universal, and returning her music to TikTok, which Universal and other industry groups have said pays far too little in royalties. Overnight, TikTok unveiled “The Ultimate Taylor Swift In-App Experience,” offering fans digital goodies like a “Tortured Poets-inspired animation” on their feed.

Before the album’s release on Friday, Swift revealed that a music video — for “Fortnight,” the first single, featuring Post Malone — would arrive on Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. At 2 a.m., she had another surprise: 15 more songs. “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you,” she wrote in a social media post , bringing “The Anthology” edition of the album to 31 tracks.

“The Tortured Poets Department,” which Swift, 34, announced in a Grammy acceptance speech in February — she had the Instagram post ready to go — lands as Swift’s profile continues to rise to ever-higher levels of cultural saturation.

Her Eras Tour , begun last year, has been a global phenomenon, crashing Ticketmaster and lifting local economies ; by some estimates, it might bring in as much as $2 billion in ticket sales — by far a new record — before it ends later this year. Swift’s romance with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has been breathlessly tracked from its first flirtations last summer to their smooch on the Super Bowl field in February. The mere thought that Swift might endorse a presidential candidate this year sent conspiracy-minded politicos reeling .

“The Tortured Poets Department” — don’t even ask about the missing apostrophe — arrived accompanied by a poem written by Stevie Nicks that begins, “He was in love with her/Or at least she thought so.” That establishes what many fans correctly anticipated as the album’s theme of heartbreak and relationship rot, Swift’s signature topic. “I love you/It’s ruining my life,” she sings on “Fortnight.”

Fans were especially primed for the fifth track, “So Long, London,” given that (1) Swift has said she often sequences her most vulnerable and emotionally intense songs fifth on an LP, and (2) the title suggested it may be about Joe Alwyn, the English actor who was Swift’s boyfriend for about six years, reportedly until early 2023 . Indeed, “So Long” is an epic breakup tune, with lines like “You left me at the house by the heath” and “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.” Tracks from the album leaked on Wednesday, and fans have also interpreted some songs as being about Matty Healy , the frontman of the band the 1975, whom Swift was briefly linked to last year.

The album’s title song starts with a classic Swift detail of a memento from a lost love: “You left your typewriter at my apartment/Straight from the tortured poets department.” It also name-drops Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith and, somewhat surprisingly given that company, Charlie Puth, the singer-songwriter who crooned the hook on Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again,” a No. 1 hit in 2015. (Swift has praised Wiz Khalifa and that song in the past.)

Other big moments include “Florida!!!,” featuring Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine, in which Swift declares — after seven big percussive bangs — that the state “is one hell of a drug.” Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, the producers and songwriters who have been Swift’s primary collaborators in recent years, both worked on “Tortured Poets,” bringing their signature mix of moody, pulsating electronic tracks and delicate acoustic moments, like a bare piano on “Loml” (as in “love of my life”).

As the ninth LP Swift has released in five years, “Tortured Poets” is the latest entry in a remarkable creative streak. That includes five new studio albums and four rerecordings of her old music — each of which sailed to No. 1. When Swift played SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles in August, she spoke from the stage about her recording spurt, saying that the forced break from touring during the Covid-19 pandemic had spurred her to connect with fans by releasing more music.

“And so I decided, in order to keep that connection going,” she said , “if I couldn’t play live shows with you, I was going to make and release as many albums as humanly possible.”

That was two albums ago.

Ben Sisario covers the music industry. He has been writing for The Times since 1998. More about Ben Sisario

Inside the World of Taylor Swift

A Triumph at the Grammys: Taylor Swift made history  by winning her fourth album of the year at the 2024 edition of the awards, an event that saw women take many of the top awards .

‘The T ortured Poets Department’: Poets reacted to Swift’s new album name , weighing in on the pertinent question: What do the tortured poets think ?  

In the Public Eye: The budding romance between Swift and the football player Travis Kelce created a monocultural vortex that reached its apex  at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. Ahead of kickoff, we revisited some key moments in their relationship .

Politics (Taylor’s Version): After months of anticipation, Swift made her first foray into the 2024 election for Super Tuesday with a bipartisan message on Instagram . The singer, who some believe has enough influence  to affect the result of the election , has yet to endorse a presidential candidate.

Conspiracy Theories: In recent months, conspiracy theories about Swift and her relationship with Kelce have proliferated , largely driven by supporters of former President Donald Trump . The pop star's fans are shaking them off .