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The Sweetness of Forgetting: A Book Club Recommendation!

e-book


The ā€œbeautifully complexā€ (Womanā€™s Day) classic that made Kristin Harmel a superstar follows a woman who must travel from Cape Cod to Paris to uncover a family secret for her dying grandmother that could change everything. Updated with a new authorā€™s note and recipes for this 10th anniversary edition!

At thirty-six, Hope McKenna-Smith is no stranger to bad news. She lost her mother to cancer, her husband left her, and her bank account is nearly depleted. Her own dreams of becoming a lawyer long gone, sheā€™s running a failing family bakery on Cape Cod and raising a troubled preteen.

Now, Hopeā€™s beloved French-born grandmother Mamie is drifting away in a haze of Alzheimerā€™s. But in a rare moment of clarity, Mamie realizes that unless she tells Hope about the past, the secrets she has held on to for so many years will soon be lost forever. Tantalizingly, she reveals mysterious snippets of a tragic history in WWII Paris. Armed with a scrawled list of names, Hope heads to France to uncover a seventy-year-old mystery.

What follows is ā€œan immersive and evocative tale of generations struggling to surviveā€ (Publishers Weekly) as Hope pieces together her grandmotherā€™s past bit by bit. Uncovering horrific tales of the Holocaust, she realizes the astonishing will of her grandmother to endure in a world gone mad. And to reunite two lovers torn apart by terror, all sheā€™ll need is a dash of courage, and the belief that God exists everywhere, even in cake.

ā€œKristin Harmel is a powerful and dazzling voice in historical fiction.ā€ ā€”Patti Callahan, New York Times bestselling author of Surviving Savannah