Her golden hair, her leopard print dress and her wedding band … The woman’s allure was irresistible, her life lessons the kind that cause a young man to live a little, question a bit and grow up a lot …

What are we talking about? The debut novel of 21-year-old New Zealander Sebastian Hampson that explores the awakening of a 20-something Sorbonne student by a woman twice his age.

Elevator pitch … Lawrence Williams, a naïve, young New Zealander, is in thrall to Élodie Lavelle, an older, married woman, who is a tiger in bed (as it turns out). She’s teaching him how he should dress and eat and behave in Europe — including how to smoke cigars, spend other people’s money and get smashed.

The buzz … Launched at the New Zealand Writers Festive (February 21 to March 16); so far reviews have been reasonably good. Several say the quality of Hampson’s storytelling belies his tender years.

The talent … Author Sebastian Hampson was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1992. He grew up in Wellington, has lived in Europe, and is currently studying art history and literature at Victoria University in Wellington.

In a nutshell … Young, innocent, male art student meets older, gorgeous, siren (clad in tight-fitting leopard print) in a train station. She throws him into life’s deep end in Biarritz and then throws herself (fully clothed in a purple gown) into their luxury hotel’s pool as a threat. Months later in Paris she hooks up with the Lawrence again, treats him appallingly again, and so the plot thickens.

It’s great that … Love is blind, deaf, dumb and stupid. As Lawrence’s relationship with his Kiwi girlfriend, Sophie, wanes, he becomes obsessed with getting to the heart of Élodie — body and soul. And this despite her reticence to reveal the mystery behind her egotism, meanness and other strange behaviour.

It’s a shame that … Élodie spends a lot of time calling Lawrence a silly boy and telling him how to suck eggs. Theirs is a scratchy relationship and their conversations often clunk. Lawrence also overhears Élodie telling her old friend Ed Selvin that he is a “project”. I wondered: Would they really have put up with each other even for the brief times they spend together?

Quote to mull … I was as hungry as a clochard. [ABBW: Really?]

You’ll like it if … Your DVD player is on the blink. There are myriad movies that explore the younger man/older woman territory – if you’re a fan of these, you should like The Train to Paris.

Why read it? … There’s plenty of momentum in the narrative (so if you’ve got an hour or two to spare it will easily chew through them) and it’s a romance of sorts set in Paris — the city of love.

The details … The Train to Paris, Sebastian Hampson, Text Publishing, $29.99