Ok readers, here’s another book you need to check out. The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel is wonderful! Five stars! I didn’t know who Kristin Harmel was until a few months ago when I became part of the Friends and Fiction FB group. (See post from Aug. 4.) Listening to Kristin talk about her book got me hooked. I had to read it.
It’s historical fiction that takes place during WWII. But wait. If that turns you off, trust me. Keep reading. At first the WWII focus turned me off. I like historical fiction at times, but I’ve read a lot of HEAVY books about the war, extermination camps, etc. Don’t get me wrong. They are worth reading, but I have to be in the right mood and right time in my life to sit and read a book like that. Well, I was pleasantly surprised with The Book of Lost Names. It took place during the war and never diminished the seriousness of the circumstances, but it wasn’t the heavy reading I was expecting. I found it difficult to put the book down once I started.
Eva, a young Jewish woman, has to put her artistic abilities to work to fake documents. Her forgeries need to be realistic enough to get her and her mother out of Paris as the raids on Jewish people begin. Once they get to a small town at the base of the Alps, Eva feels safer. They should be able to cross over into Switzerland fairly easily. However, while in the town, she gets involved in a forgery ring helping make documents to get others out of dangerous zones and across to Switzerland.
“The danger is real, but the book illuminates valor and goodness in the human heart instead of focusing on evil and darkness.”
Instead of depressing, this book is intriguing. It is so interesting to learn about regular people working in the Underground to help Jews, adults and children alike. As Jewish children, often separated from their families by the raids, are being helped safely across the border, the story is secretly, quietly triumphant. The danger is real, but the book illuminates valor and goodness in the human heart instead of focusing on evil and darkness.
As Eva creates documents, she has to change people’s names. As many of them are children, she is afraid they will be too young to remember their real names. She states that the Nazis want to erase her people, and she doesn’t want to be a part of erasing their history through the forgeries, even if she is saving lives. That’s why Eva uses a book to keep track of the children’s names in code. She calls it The Book of Lost Names. She wants to ensure a way later for them to reconnect with who they were before the war. Decades after the war the book reemerges and only Eva can tell the story and crack the code. Although Eva is fictional, her character and her methods of forgery are based on real people and techniques. What a great story!
This book gets 5 stars from me. Leave me a comment if you’ve read it or plan to read it!
Last week while on vacation on Sanibel Island (my happy place), I read book one, The Beach House. Wow. I loved this book. 
I also recently enjoyed reading Girls of Summer by Nancy Thayer. Although I felt the first few chapters delayed the real story from starting, I really liked this book. Lisa is a divorced middle aged woman with two adult children, Juliet and Theo. After raising the children alone and putting her own life on hold, Lisa finally discovers she has interest in a man in town. Just about the same time, her daughter comes home to Nantucket for the summer. On the boat to the island, she meets a new guy she’s interested in. Then Lisa’s son comes home and starts up a relationship with a girl he liked back in high school. Privacy becomes an issue for everyone since no one knows when someone else might pop in at the house, especially when they want to bring dates home. Add the complication that the girl Theo wants to date is the daughter of mom’s new boyfriend and you get an interesting story. This was a good, light, beach read.
If you are a fan of C.S. Lewis, you need to pick up Patti Callahan’s book Becoming Mrs. Lewis. This historical fiction is based on many interviews and loads of research which enables Callahan to bring Joy Davidman’s experiences to life as she develops a long-term relationship with Lewis.
Although Becoming Mrs. Lewis mentions Tolkien and The Inklings, it is really the story of Joy Davidman. As a person with a similar conversion story as Lewis, she began writing letters to him. She also felt a literary connection to him since she was a published poet. Struggling in an abusive marriage and new to the Christian life, Joy sought counsel from Lewis. Her letters from America traveled across the ocean to Lewis at Oxford and he wrote back, gradually leading to a long-term pen-pal friendship.
Susan’s skill at storytelling is impressive. In Map of the Heart she seamlessly intertwines stories from two different generations. The first story surrounds Camille, an American photographer who specializes in developing old film. People come to her to salvage the images on long forgotten film in canisters found in attics or film found in old cameras. When Finn, a college history professor, comes to her about some personal film, Camille is instantly attracted to him, but she struggles with moving on after being widowed five years earlier. Her teenage daughter is also struggling with an overprotective mom and school bullies.
My week began with taking a few moments to catch up on Facebook when I noticed a post from one of my favorite authors that I follow. I sat in shock as I realized the post was from her page, but it was written by her family. They were announcing that their dear mother and wife, Dorothea Benton Frank, had passed on Labor Day, September 2, 2019. Dottie, as her family, friends and fans called her, died after a brief battle with MDS, Myelodysplastic Syndrome, a type of cancer much like leukemia. She was 67.
Whenever I think, “Oh, I’d like to make ________ ,” I can never find my recipe. Then I go online to look up a recipe for it only to find it isn’t quite what I’m looking for or I’m tweaking it anyways. I’ve decided to put an end to all that! I’m getting organized!
This story is told in retrospect by an 80-year-old Noah to Josh, a hospital orderly. (Yes, I believe the character is meant as a nod to Nicholas Sparks’s Noah in 
which contains a large envelope. Inside is a story that piques his interest. 
I can only give it 3.5. It was definitely worth the time to read it; however, Spark’s heartache from his own divorce understandably appears to be leaking into his writing. If you are looking for the typical Nicholas Sparks love story, this isn’t it. You might call it an anti-romance. Yet, I found the development of the main character interesting.
soccer game. Picked as the “Fans of the Game,” jetBlue gave them tickets to go anywhere they fly – for free! Congratulations, Bob and Sue!
I bought a small pack of pretty folders. I labeled the obvious topics on them: Décor, Travel, Recipes, etc. I gathered up all my piles and began sorting. Some things went directly to the trash. I’d already tried it, it was outdated, or my tastes had simply changed. I set the writing inspirational clippings together in a different pile since I noticed most of these were small. I had a different idea for them.