Hugo Chadwick is the love interest of the novel. He is a 31-year-old half-British, half-French man with blond hair and blue eyes. His father, Raymond, is a British businessman who owns and runs a real estate company, Chadwick Holdings. Hugo has become the Chief Operating Officer of the company following the death of his older brother, Stephane, six years prior. Before Stephane’s death, Hugo lived, comfortable with the fact that his hard, demanding father expected little of him as the younger son. He now feels trapped, feeling obligated to fill his brother’s shoes and play a role that does not fit him or his aspirations.

He chafes against his father’s demands but feels he has no choice but to comply because he feels responsible for Stephane’s death. He believes his parents blame him for Stephane’s death, particularly Raymond. Hugo’s French mother, Seraphine, has been diagnosed with early onset dementia and now lives in a care facility near Compiègne.

Hugo is a romantic who loves old architecture, which he preserves in street photography. He carries a paperback copy of Swann’s Way, the first volume of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, on his person as a kind of talisman, which he lends to Edith on the night they meet. When they clash over the foreclosure of the bakery, he is torn between his obligation to his family’s business and his own morality, highlighting the conflict of Dreams Versus Reality. This tension is complicated by his mother’s revelation that her uncle was the one responsible for the betrayal and capture of Madame Moreau’s mother. In the end, he chooses to save the bakery, defying his father’s wishes. Like Edith, Hugo must learn to face and accept his brother’s death and find his purpose moving forward. He also embodies the theme of Standing Up for What’s Right.

Genevieve, or Madame, Moreau is an important secondary character and the current owner of the bakery La Boulangerie et Patisserie de Compiègne, which she inherited from her adoptive father, Pierre Moreau. Madame Moreau is a “cantankerous old dame” (36) in her mid-eighties. Ethnically, she is Romani, with both of her parents originating from a small Romani tribe that traveled throughout France before World War II. During the war, her father was taken away by the Germans. Her mother escaped capture by approaching the first man she saw, Pierre Moreau, and pretending to be his wife. From that moment, Pierre Moreau became Genevieve’s protector. When her mother was taken by the Germans and sent first to the internment camp near Compiègne, and then presumably to one of the German death camps, Pierre became her only family.

Madame Moreau is terse, stern, and unimpressed with Edith in the beginning. She displays a sharp “wit and intellect to rival any French philosopher” (35). Madame Moreau is a foil for Edith, portrayed as opposites of each other in the ways they face the world. Where Edith is constantly worried about what others think of her and trying to please people, Madame Moreau speaks her mind and does not concern herself with others’ opinions. Eventually, they come to an understanding, learning to respect and even like each other. They discover common ground in their grief. Like Edith, Madame Moreau must learn to accept and let go of the past before she can move forward, underscoring the theme of grief and healing.

Pierre Moreau is a crucial secondary point-of-view character in the novel. He is a French baker from Compiègne who trained in Paris in the 1920s and eventually returned to his hometown to open La Boulangerie et Patisserie de Compiègne. He believes strongly in the power of baking and treats the process of baking like meditation or a form of prayer.

After meeting a mysterious merchant from Madagascar who sold him a special variety of vanilla beans, he uses it as a secret ingredient in his baking. Pierre himself reflects the magical realism of the novel. After his death, he remains as a ghost in the basement of the bakery, an imprint of his presence from which Manu learns his baking skills.

Woods characterizes Pierre, a gay man who was in love with his school friend Jean-Yves, as a deeply compassionate and moral man who takes Genevieve and her mother into his home to protect them from the Germans at the risk of his own life. When Genevieve’s mother is captured and killed by the Germans, Pierre keeps Genevieve safe and loves her as his own daughter, emphasizing Woods’s thematic interest in Standing Up for What’s Right. It is the power of this love that keeps his spirit in the bakery after his death, allowing him to keep his promise to stay with her. Only once he is certain that both she and the bakery will be safe does his ghost finally leave.

Nicole and Johnny are secondary characters in the novel. Nicole is a French woman and hairstylist who lives in Compiègne and befriends Edith. Johnny is her British husband, who plays in a jazz band. Nicole helps Edith break out of her isolation and challenges her to try new things in life. She is important to the plot at several points because she incites several turning points in Edith’s story, first by introducing Edith to Hugo, and then by encouraging Edith to be brave in accepting her feelings for Hugo, and also by spearheading the public protests in support of the bakery. Johnny introduces Edith to the music of Django Reinhardt, whose connection to Madame Moreau and the bakery proves vital.

Geoff is a minor character in the novel, who works as a historical tour guide in Compiègne. He gives tours of historical sites around the town. He has little impact on the plot except for some minor assistance in the plan to save the bakery. However, his presence is crucial to the narrative’s efforts to educate Edith (and the reader) about the historical significance of Compiègne, especially the horrors of the German occupation during World War II. It is through Geoff that Edith learns about the German occupation and the internment camp near the town, where Madame Moreau’s mother was taken. These kinds of historical details are a common element in Evie Woods’s novels. They are crucial to grounding the otherwise fantastical, fairy-tale-like narrative within a particular historical moment and lending emotional depth and gravitas to the characters.