A baker in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, must travel to Paris to uncover a family secret for her dying grandmother–and what she learns may change everything. The Sweetness of Forgetting is the book that made Kristin Harmel an international bestseller. At thirty-six, Hope McKenna-Smith is no stranger to bad news. She lost her mother to cancer, her husband left her for a twenty-two year old, and her … a twenty-two year old, and her bank account is nearly depleted. Her own dreams of becoming a lawyer long gone, she’s running a failing family bakery on Cape Cod and raising a troubled preteen.
Now, Hope’s beloved French-born grandmother Mamie, who wowed the Cape with her fabulous pastries for more than fifty years, is drifting away into a haze of Alzheimer’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 Paris. And then, arming her with a scrawled list of names, she sends Hope to France to uncover a seventy-year-old mystery.
Hope’s emotional journey takes her through the bakeries of Paris and three religious traditions, all guided by Mamie’s fairy tales and the sweet tastes of home. As Hope pieces together her family’s history, she finds horrific Holocaust stories mixed with powerful testimonies of her family’s will to survive in a world gone mad. And to reunite two lovers torn apart by terror, all she’ll need is a dash of courage, and the belief that God exists everywhere, even in cake…
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This is an entertaining, well-written, historical fiction novel set during WWII and in the present day. It has wonderful characters, the heartbreak of Alzheimer’s disease, the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the drama of a preteen. It is an engaging page turner which held my interest from the beginning until its bittersweet ending. I am looking …
I have read Kristin Harmel’s three most recent books and really enjoyed them so I decided that I would read some of her older books. I sure picked a fantastic older book to start with. The Sweetness of Forgetting is full of fantastic characters with a plot that is well researched and will make you smile and cry.
Hope is in her mid-thirties. She’s …
It was such an interesting book of real characters. I had no idea that multiple religions helped Jewish people escape the Nazis. It is a book that has stayed with me for some time.
Well written, bit slow during the beginning but once it all starts to come together you can’t put it down!
I had heard several people say how much they loved this book and I decided to see why. This is the first book that I have read by this author. It is beautifully written in a way that draws you into the story and makes you care about the characters. Hope is recently divorced, raising her daughter Annie, and has taken over the family bakery after …
I’ve read many books written about this time in history and this is my favorite. Such a great story about true love !
One of the best books I’ve read in ages!!!
One of the best books I have read and I read a lot of books