Fever at Dawn by Péter Gárdos

This was a good book about Miklos and Lili who both survived their respective concentration camp imprisonments. They were each being nursed back to health in rehabilitation centers many miles apart.

Miklos was determined to find a wife for himself and began a letter writing campaign to 117 girls who met the requirements he established for a wife. Lili writes him back and they communicate via letter for six months.

This is a fictionalized account of the author’s parents actual love story. It’s a sweet story and I found myself cheering for their relationship amidst the efforts of external situations and people to ruin it.

The book is light and easy to read. A love story.

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I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book! As I was reading I realized taht the reason I love reading Terry McMillan’s books is that I would want to be friends with the main character. Georgia Young is no different.

Georgia is nearly 55 when she finds that a man she used to know has passed. This makes her re-evaluate her own life. She has been a successful optometrist but feels bored and that there’s more in life for her.

She decides to get in touch with the men she’s loved in her life to see where they are and how their lives have progressed. She wants to tell them she was glad to have been in their lives since they all taught her something. She manages to make peace with her two ex-husbands and then thinks pursuing the rest may not be the best idea.

While she’s trying to decide how to change her life. She puts her house on the market and makes plans to sell her share of her practice. Different events occur that make her realize that she really likes her home and she takes it off the market and decides to start making “art” from furniture in her garage.

Her friend throws her a party for her 55th birthday and invites a man she loved, but never even admitted that love to herself, in college. Eventually, in a rather short time, Georgia realizes this is where she’s supposed to be in her life.

I loved being part of Georgia finding herself. I’m glad she ended up with Stan, happy. I highly recommend this book. I couldn’t put it down! 🙂

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The Girl from Summer Hill by Jude Deveraux
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. No, I LOVED it. Such a great story and I loved the way it ended. The book is a modern day take on Pride and Prejudice. I haven’t read Pride and Prejudice (I know I need to rectify that) but I’m not sure if it would have made me love the story any more.

At first I thought it was going to be a standard love story where Casey and Tate would be together and then split up over and over again. I probably would’ve been okay with that because I really loved the characters in this book. But that isn’t how it went. When the character of Devlin turned out to be such a bad guy throwing unexpected twists into plot, I was surprised and excited. It gave the book so much more depth.

Casey is a cook and she is planning to take care of the food needs for the play that’s being produced in Summer Hill for the summer. While standing in one day, she unknowingly gets her own part in the play. Tate came to Summer Hill to try and revisit his mother’s early life. Casey and Tate start out on the wrong foot but over the course of the story, they fall in love.

This is a wonderful book. I loved it so much I didn’t want it to end. Seeing the Book 1 in the title makes me happy because I can’t wait to read more about the folks from Summer Hill.

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Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Without a doubt, this is the best book I’ve read this year. I was so caught up in the story and did not realize, until I read the Acknowledgements, that this is based on real people and real events from World War II. Real. Brave. Women.

The book follows three women. One, a New York socialite, Carolyn. The second, a Polish teen, Kasia. And third, a German Nazi doctor, Huerta.

The stories of the three women are initially woven separately but I knew that they would eventually come together which they did. Kasia was sent to Ravensbruk concentration camp wtih her sister, Zuzanna, her mother, and a friend. Kasia and her sister become part of a group eventually referred to as Rabbits because they had heinous operations done on their legs which caused them to hop rather than walk.

Herta, the Nazi doctor, is the one that operated on them. Carolyn, the socialite, works with the French to try and keep children clothed, families together, during the war. Eventually, she arranges for the Rabbits to come to America to be operated on to become whole. She also finds out that Herta, who’d gone to jail for her war crimes, had been released after serving only 5 years of her sentence. She wants to see her medical license revoked permanently and arranges what Kascia needs to get her to the town in Northern Germany where Herta is a practicing family medicine doctor.

The is a gripping story of real events that happened during World War II. The characters are wonderful and I loved getting to know them. Herta was a villain and was written about well.

I can’t recommend this book enough. I loved it!

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