Genre: Historical Fiction
Length: 384 pages
First Published: 2023
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Publisher’s Description
Paris, 1939: Young mothers Elise and Juliette become fast friends the day they meet in the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. Though there is a shadow of war creeping across Europe, neither woman suspects that their lives are about to irrevocably change.
When Elise becomes a target of the German occupation, she entrusts Juliette with the most precious thing in her life—her young daughter, playmate to Juliette’s own little girl. But nowhere is safe in war, not even a quiet little bookshop like Juliette’s Librairie des Rêves, and, when a bomb falls on their neighborhood, Juliette’s world is destroyed along with it.
More than a year later, with the war finally ending, Elise returns to reunite with her daughter, only to find her friend’s bookstore reduced to rubble. Surviving neighbors tell her that Juliette and a little girl survived. But which little girl—and what happened in the bookstore’s final moments? Juliette has seemingly vanished without a trace, taking all the answers with her. Elise’s desperate quest to find out what happened to her daughter ultimately leads her to New York—and to Juliette—one final, fateful time.
About Kristin Harmel
Kristin Harmel is the author of a dozen novels including The Book of Lost Names, The Forest of Vanishing Stars, The Winemaker’s Wife, The Room on Rue Amélie, The Paris Daughter, and The Sweetness of Forgetting. She is also the cofounder and cohost of the popular web series, Friends and Fiction. She currently lives in Orlando, Florida. Visit the author’s website →