The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris by Daisy Wood

 The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris by Daisy Wood 367 Pages

Summary: Paris, 1940: War is closing in on the city of love. With his wife forced into hiding, Jacques must stand by and watch as the Nazis take away everything he holds dear. Everything except his last beacon of hope: his beloved bookshop, La Page Cachée.

But when a young woman and her child knock on his door one night and beg for refuge, he knows his only option is to risk it all once more to save a life…

Modern day: Juliette and her husband have finally made it to France on the romantic getaway of her dreams—but as the days pass, all she discovers is quite how far they’ve grown apart. She’s craving a new adventure, so when she happens across a tiny, abandoned shop with a for-sale sign in the window, it feels fated.

And she’s about to learn that the forgotten bookshop hides a lot more than meets the eye…

My Thoughts: Oh man this book was heart wrenching. It was incredibly interesting having the focus be on a bookshop. I liked the two different perspectives from different years. 

Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon, p.

"Ari Abrams has always been fascinated by the weather, and she loves almost everything about her job as a TV meteorologist. Her boss, legendary Seattle weatherwoman Torrance Hale, is too distracted by her tempestuous relationship with her ex-husband, the station’s news director, to give Ari the mentorship she wants. Ari, who runs on sunshine and optimism, is at her wits’ end. The only person who seems to understand how she feels is sweet but reserved sports reporter Russell Barringer.

In the aftermath of a disastrous holiday party, Ari and Russell decide to team up to solve their bosses’ relationship issues. Between secret gifts and double dates, they start nudging their bosses back together. But their well-meaning meddling backfires when the real chemistry builds between Ari and Russell.

Working closely with Russell means allowing him to get to know parts of herself that Ari keeps hidden from everyone. Will he be able to embrace her dark clouds as well as her clear skies?"--Goodreads blurb

This was a fun, quick contemporary romance after coming off a sweeping, adventurous fantasy series. I read this in one day and it while it was a typically typical, romance it was still a good, escapist read. 
 

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

 

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant   322 pgs. 

"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Red Tent and Day After Night, comes an unforgettable coming-of-age novel about family ties and values, friendship and feminism told through the eyes of a young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in the early twentieth century.

Addie Baum is The Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents who were unprepared for and suspicious of America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie's intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can't imagine - a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture and new opportunities for women. Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college. She wants a career and to find true love."  (Source: Goodreads)

 85 year old Addie Baum  is asked, "How did you get to be the woman you are today?" by her granddaughter. The spry octogenerian goes back to the beginning:  Boston, 1900. Addie is the child of Russian immigrants of the Jewish faith.  Her story touches upon some of the highlights of the early 20th century: The Great War and The Spanish Flu, to name a couple. The story is sad in parts, but the narrator never dwells too long on the tragic. She keeps the pace moving by going on to the next event. I thought it was poignant and often humorous. 

Jacob's Oath: A Novel by Martin Fletcher

Jacob's Oath: A Novel by Martin Fletcher - 323 pages

Jacob's Oath opens with it's two main characters, Jacob Klein and Sarah Kaufmann, living out the last days of World War II.  Both Jews, Jacob has been liberated from Bergen-Belsen while Sarah emerged from her hiding place in war-torn Berlin, aided by a Russian Jewish intelligence officer named Isak Brodsky.  Both make returning home to Heidelberg their goal and they succeed.  However, once there each has to face their fears.  For Sarah, it is learning the fate of her beloved while Jacob vows to kill the local guard who murdered his brother.  In the midst of this, Jacob learns how to make money on the black market and the two survivors fall in love.  How will their new found romance affect them facing their fears?  Read and find out.  In all, I enjoyed this novel and how it portrayed events realistically.

Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli

Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli- 222 pgs

When the Nazis rounded up the Hungarian Jews and sent them to Auschwitz, Dr. Nyiszli was one of them.  He escaped the gas chamber because he was a doctor with a background in pathology.  He worked directly under Dr. Josef Mengele, who was known as "The Angel of Death", performing "scientific research" Mengele requested on the prisoners of Auschwitz.  Nyiszli was also the doctor to the Sonderkommando.  These were prisoners who worked exclusively in the four crematoriums at Auschwitz and who were routinely executed after four months to guarantee that no information about what was happening there got out.  Dr. Nyiszli spent eight months at Auschwitz and watched thousands of people walk to their deaths in the gas chambers in the crematoriums.  He did have a happy ending, though.  He was liberated and reunited with his wife and daughter after the war was over.

This was a short read, but a sobering one.  Dr. Nyiszli tells the stories of how one Jewish girl survived the gas chamber, only to be executed later, how the people were told lies to comfort them before being gassed, that when the crematoriums were to busy to handle a new "shipment", these people were led out to a field to be shot and thrown into a pit of fire.  I can't imagine what it was like to see that on a daily basis.  This is a good book to remind yourself of the horrors the Jewish, Gypsy and other people deemed "not good enough" suffered at the hands of other men.

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure - 371 pages

The Paris Architect  is a gripping story about a pair who worked architectural marvels in Occupied Paris to protect French Jews.  The novel follows architect Lucien Bernard and industrialist Auguste Manet.  To the eyes of most Parisians and the Germans, Bernard and Manet appear to be collaborationists helping design factories for the German war effort.  Behind the scenes, Bernard designs cleverly disguised hiding spaces for Manet's Jewish friends enabling them to elude the Germans.

What I loved most about this book was the "cat and mouse game" Bernard and Manet played with the Germans to cleverly hide the Jews.

Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite, by Barry Deutsch

Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite, by Barry Deutsch, 128 pages

Mirka is a young, Orthodox Jewish girl, who is anything but orthodox. (Word play!)   In the first book, Mirka won a sword from a troll, and he promised to keep it safe for her.  When Mirka visits the troll to practice with the sword, she embarks on a new adventure that involves a meteor crashing to Hereville, the meteor's transformation into Mirka's doppelganger, and Mirka's ensuing battle to be the one, true Mirka.  These books are light, fun reads, where you'll learn a few new Yiddish terms while you're at it.  I think that the main audience for these is younger young adults, although the Orthodox angle might alienate a few readers.