1. “Help me remember” Corinne Michaels (Akurat) is one of those books that you can read in one sitting. Brielle wakes up in the hospital. Someone attacked her and shot her brother. The girl is the only witness to the crime and the only one who can help catch the murderer. Unfortunately, she doesn’t remember what happened on that tragic day, just like… the last three years of her life. In order not to disturb the girl’s memories, the doctor decides that her loved ones cannot give any details about her life – so as not to undermine her testimony as a witness to the event. Brielle, with the help of a friend, tries to recreate the last years. The girl’s secrets come to light, and the biggest one is that she had a fiancé, whom she didn’t tell anyone about.
It is interesting to observe the transformation of the main character – from a desperate attempt to remember everything to reaching the point where she wants to move forward and build her life anew.
2. The pair of main characters of the novel “Five Years From Now” Paige Toon (Albatross), Nell and Vian, meet at the age of five. Then the girl comes to Cornwall to visit her father, where she meets unfamiliar faces – Ruth, her father’s new partner and her son – Vian. At first, the children are distrustful of each other, but they quickly become friends, and after some time, when Nell moves in with her father, they become inseparable. However, the family’s happiness does not last long… Ruth dies in a car accident, and Vian goes to live with her father in Australia. The characters will meet after five years, when they are teenagers. Then they realize that they are in love with each other. When Nell’s dad finds out about this, he decides to separate the two. Separation does not make their feelings fade away, on the contrary…
Paige Toon can create touching and touching love stories. It is never an easy love, but the characters are created in such a way that it is impossible not to root for them. While reading Nell and Vian’s story, I cried several times.
3. After a trip to Italy and Cuba, Soraya Lane takes us to Greece. “Daughter from Greece” (Albatross) is the third volume of the “Lost Daughters” series. We learn the story of subsequent boxes found in the “House of Hope” – a place where pregnant, unmarried women could give birth in peace and give their child up for adoption. Sometimes they did it because they had no other choice, sometimes their family forced them to do it. In the box she received, Ella finds a photo of a woman and a girl and an old sheet of music. She quickly discovers on which Greek island the photo was taken, and with the help of an old friend, she manages to identify the musical notes left behind. He goes to the island of Skopelos and tries to discover the family secret… “A Daughter from Greece” is a very pleasant read, and although it is easy to guess how the whole story will end, I am sure that you will discover the next elements of the puzzle with great interest.
4. Ayanna Lloyd Banwo in the novel “When We Were Birds” (Echa) takes us on a journey to the Caribbean island of Trinidad. However, it will not be a paradise trip, but a trip to the city where the worlds of the living and the dead constantly intertwine.
The main characters are Yejide St. Bernard and Emmanneul Darwin. The Yejide family has lived in an old house on a hilltop near Port Angels for hundreds of years. In each generation, one of the women is responsible for leading the souls of the inhabitants to the afterlife. However, our heroine’s relationship with her mother was so complicated that when she died, Yejide was completely unprepared for her role. Emmanuel was raised by a devout Rastafarian and had always observed the ban on approaching the dead. However, when his mother became so seriously ill that she could no longer work, he took a job as a grave digger in the oldest cemetery in Port Angeles. This decision destroyed his relationship with his mother. But it was in the cemetery that he met Yejide. Although at first glance the two of them have nothing in common, it quickly turned out that they complemented each other perfectly. The book is full of difficult emotions, sadness is omnipresent, evil lurks around the corner. But there is something mesmerizing about this magical world, about the legends that Grandma told Yejide.
5. “Forgotten Sundays” Valérie Perrin (Albatros) is three stories – one takes place in the present day, the second takes us to the times of World War II, and the third takes place in the 80s and 90s of the twentieth century. The heroine who connects, but also slowly reveals to us all the stories is Justine. She is a young girl who works in a nursing home. Justine loves listening to stories about the lives of the residents. She would love to write down every story she hears to save them from oblivion. It is thanks to her that we learn the story of Hélène Hel’s love, which the woman writes down for the grandson of a resident. However, our heroine also accidentally discovers that her family is hiding a secret and decides to discover it… This is a book about many types of love – unfulfilled, unrequited, forbidden, but also about the kind that is awaited, found after years and so close to us that it is hard to see it. So get ready for a smile that will definitely appear on your face, for a lot of emotion and even more moments when you will feel disappointment and overwhelming sadness along with the characters.
6. “A Date in Paris” Lorraine Brown (Wydawnictwo Kobiece) is a very charming social novel. Hannah and Simon are going to Amsterdam for Cath’s wedding, his sister. They decide to get there by train, which is supposed to be the culmination of their romantic trip to Venice. Unfortunately, they get to the platform at the last minute, and since their couchette is already taken, they spend the journey in the train corridor. In the middle of the night, Hannah finds a free carriage and decides to take a nap in it. She does not know that only half of the train goes to the Netherlands. The part where the girl stops ends the route in Paris. Hannah has no luggage or money with her, and her mobile phone is stolen when she tries to buy a ticket to Amsterdam. If the girl wants to make it to the wedding, she has to wait several hours for the train.
Leo is in exactly the same situation. However, Paris is his hometown, so he has no intention of spending half the day at the station. He manages to convince Hannah to explore the city together… This is how a day begins that will change the girl’s life forever. The publisher suggests that it will be a story straight from romantic comedies, but I would say that it is a story about finding yourself, regaining faith in your own abilities and that it is never too late to change.
7. “I will flow forward like a river”, Shelley Read’s debut novel (Margins), delighted me, moved me and overwhelmed me with so much sadness. The main character of the book is Victoria. When the story begins, the girl is 17 years old. A few years earlier, she lost her mother, aunt and cousin in an accident. He lives with his father, uncle and brother on a farm that is famous throughout the area for its best peaches. Her life is mainly about taking care of the house – that is, serving the men she lives with, listening to sarcastic comments and enduring everything that happens to her with great humility, because “God wanted it that way.” This changes when a young Indian comes to town, and meeting him makes the girl find a lot of courage.
We accompany Victoria for over twenty years, we watch her change – from a teenager who falls in love for the first time and tries to start living her own life, through a lost young person who tries to find her place in an unfriendly world, to an experienced, wise woman who has reconciled with her fate, who has saved the family legacy and is not afraid of change. This is by no means a book by one heroine – there are also others who do not stand out in the foreground, but help and support each other in a world dominated by men. This is a book about finding yourself, sisterhood, parenthood and the strength we have within ourselves.
8. “Juno” by Anna Dziewit-Meller (Wydawnictwo Literackie) is a story about two sisters. Anna is approaching forty, she has three sons. Her life is full of duties and problems of duties. She would love to write a book that will delight readers and ensure her intellectual fame. Marianna is a bit younger, she lives with her husband in her native Masurian village. She is a popular Instagrammer. On the surface, she has everything, but more than anything in the world, she wants to be a mother. The sisters are as different as fire and water, and their relationship is difficult. They would probably prefer to avoid meetings, but their father’s illness forces them to face the traumas of their childhood and youth. With this seemingly ordinary, everyday story, Anna Dziewit-Meller makes us reflect on what our lives look like, what we owe and how we should repay this debt. Despite a large dose of humor, the whole story is moving and sad, but definitely worth reading.
9. Heroine “Under the Sycamore Tree” B. Celeste (The Sign), Emery had one enemy: time. She didn’t expect much… She just wanted to live like everyone else around her: to love and be loved, to laugh, cry and worry about little things. When she found out that she suffered from the same disease from which her sister died, she knew that these were dreams that would not come true in her case. When she moved into her father’s house and met Kaiden, she felt feelings she had forgotten existed. Under the cover of the spreading plane tree where they spent time together, Emery began to breathe deeply again. She reveled in their long conversations and felt safe in his strong arms. And she enjoyed every day that Kaiden didn’t know about her illness. But time didn’t want to stop for them…
10. “The Measure of Life” Nikki Erlick (Sonia Draga) is a novel about a completely new world – full of chaos and innovative solutions that will not necessarily turn out to be good. It seems like it will be a day like any other. You wake up, get ready, leave the house, but you see a small box in front of the door. It contains the answer to the question of how many years you will live. Do you dare to open them? All people face this dilemma. Many of them are starting to lose their common sense. Where did the boxes come from? Who put them in front of the door? Is what they say true? Everyone has to make a decision: does he want to know how much time he has left or not? And what to do with this knowledge? It is a moving and terrifying story about family and friendship, as well as the power of hope and destiny that encourage us to live life to the fullest.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
