Emily thinks she’s lost everything…until a mysterious painting leads her to what she wants most in the world. The new novel from the author of international bestsellers The Sweetness of Forgetting and The Life Intended shows why her books are hailed as “engaging” (People), “absorbing” (Kirkus Reviews) and “enthralling” (Fresh Fiction). Emily Emerson is used to being alone; her dad ran out on the … 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?
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When We Meet Again is another WWII novel but told from a different perspective – that of a German prisoner of war in the US. I wasn’t aware that over 425,000 members of the German military were interned as prisoners of war in the United States during World War II. They lived in camps all over the US and were used to help in areas such as agriculture and building.
This dual timeline novel takes place in Florida in 1944 and present time. In the 1944 timeline, Margaret lives on a small farm in Florida where there are German pows working near. She makes eye contact with Peter and they gradually fall in love. Peter hadn’t been a Nazi – just another young man who didn’t believe in Hitler but was forced to serve in the German Army. They fall in love and she becomes pregnant right before the war ends and he is sent back to Germany. She has disgraced her family and leaves her home. The only letter that she got from Peter told her that he was marrying an old girlfriend. When Peter gets home to Munich, he is also shunned by his family – his father felt that he was a traitor because he got captured and had disgraced the family. Before he left, his father gave him the only letter that he said Margaret sent that told him she was pregnant. They never stop looking for each other for their entire lives.
In the present day timeline, the main character is Emily. She is alone in the world, her father abandoned her when she was young, her grandmother Margaret had just died and she is feeling tremendous guilt over a baby that she had at 18, not too long after her mother died, that she gave up for adoption. She receives a painting of a woman who looks like her grandmother when she was younger and begins a search for the artist and the meaning behind the painting. During her search she not only finds out about her grandmother’s past but also begins to understand some of the issues in her life.
This book is about family, love, forgiveness not only of others but also forgiving yourself for past mistakes, but the main focus is on love. It’s a wonderful book that I won’t soon forget.
This is an entertaining, well-written, historical fiction novel set during WWII and in the present day. It is informative, heart breaking, and heart warming. It is a captivating page turner which held my interest from the beginning until its bittersweet ending. I am looking forward to reading Ms. Harmel’s other novels with great anticipation.
Everything this author writes,
that I have read, leaves me spellbound. Her words are just so smooth and beautiful and draws out all the feels. A really great story with some twists. Abandonment, forgiveness, love and so much more!
I really liked the book.I have recommended it to many of my friends. The ending was so good. I seldom cry when I finish a book, but I did for this one.