Audio: When we meet again- Kristin Harmel

Audio CD, 10 pages

Published December 25th 2018 by Tantor Audio (first published June 7th 2016)

Historical fiction / fiction

Thank you Tantor for this copy

My Thoughts

The eternal optimist died a bit here and kept on hoping. I knew they would get no hea, but hoped, even though hope had died a horrible death. Let me begin.

Emily is a journalist, down on her luck, and lonely. And then a mystery emerges. A painting from Germany showing her grandfather and stating that he always loved her grandmother. And this is a mystery that she needs to solve.

This whole family had issues. Her grandmother never met anyone else and was alone all her life, even if she had her son Victor.

Victor left Emily and her mum when Emily was young and he did not stay in contact.

Emily had her own issues that you will learn. So they are all messed up by something that happened long ago and their wounds have shaped them.

The story alternates between Emily trying to find out more about her mysterious grandfather. and how her gran Margaret met a POW named Peter and fell in love. And then we continue to see Peter's story through out the decades.

POWs in the US what nothing new, nor the first book I have read where someone fell in love. I mean it is not like they all were nazis. They had to fight, and Peter does not believe the monster that rules their country. Though he does love his homeland.

And I kept hoping. I know, silly, but I just wanted someone to be happy! Someone! And if you despair, do not worry, someone will be happy and the circle will be broken.

Narration

I love Justine Eyre! She is fun listening to. She makes any story good

Synopsis

Emily Emerson is used to being alone; her dad ran out on the family when she was a just a kid, her mom died when she was seventeen, and her beloved grandmother has just passed away as well. But when she’s laid off from her reporting job, she finds herself completely at sea…until the day she receives a beautiful, haunting painting of a young woman standing at the edge of a sugarcane field under a violet sky. That woman is recognizable as her grandmother—and the painting arrived with no identification other than a handwritten note saying, “He always loved her.”

Emily is hungry for roots and family, so she begins to dig. And as she does, she uncovers a fascinating era in American history. Her trail leads her to the POW internment camps of Florida, where German prisoners worked for American farmers...and sometimes fell in love with American women. But how does this all connect to the painting? The answer to that question will take Emily on a road that leads from the sweltering Everglades to Munich, Germany and back to the Atlanta art scene before she’s done.

Along the way, she finds herself tempted to tear down her carefully tended walls at last; she’s seeing another side of her father, and a new angle on her painful family history. But she still has secrets, ones she’s been keeping locked inside for years. Will this journey bring her the strength to confront them at last? 

PS. NO TMST today. The topic was winter picks and well...ehhh sorry have nothing. I am sure there are many but yes I never know when books are out