Paris, 1938: The American Elise, who is expecting a baby soon, walks in the beautiful Bois de Bolougne park, when all of a sudden, the contractions start early. Luckily she meets Juliette, who is also expecting a baby, and who helps her, and takes Elise with her to her bookstore to sit and rest and get help from a doctor. Elise and Juliette become best friends. But when the husband of Elise, who is a painter and a communist, gets in trouble because of the war that has started, Elise needs to flee with her young daughter Mathilde, because the nazi's knows where she lives now. She leaves her daughter Mathilde in the care of Juliette and her husband, who have three more children. Elise flees to a neutral zone of France, where she helps at a farm where Jewish children are in hiding. But back in Paris, a disaster in the form of a bombing by the allied troops right in the middle of the street of Juliette's bookstore; her two sons and husband don't survive it, and one of the two girls doesn't make it too. After the war, she moves to family in New York City with her daughter, while Elise travels back to Paris to the bookstore, only to find out that its gone, and finds out the shocking truth about her daughter and travels to New York to find Juliette..
I have read several books by Kristin Harmel, who become one of my top favorite authors, and this book truly was just as brilliant as all her other books! The story is so well crafted, I just don't know where to begin! First of all, it was truly moving, and the characters of Elise and Juliette where very believable characters. it was so sad what happened to both characters, and their families (and a questionable and shady gallery owner who advised Elise to flee) during the war. After the war, Juliette has second thoughts of what she did to protect Elise's daughter, and she is kind of hatefull against Elise, because she has the feeling she could have done more to protect her own kids instead of Elise's daughter. But is Juliette telling the truth? There is a major plot twist near the end that I won't reveal here of course, but man, I didn't see it coming! The storyline was very strong and good, from the beginning till the end, this is just one of those books that is hard to put away!
This is just another jewel of a book by Kristin Harmel, I truly loved it, and I recommend reading it!
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