A friendship that blossoms like jasmine in springtime.

DIE JASMINSCHWESTERN
(The Jasmine Sisters)
by Corina Bomann
Penguin Germany, 2014/May 2025

When Melanie’s fiancé has an accident and ends up in a coma, young Melanie fears for his life, and for their future. After weeks of desperation and paralysis, she seeks refuge and distraction on her 96-year-old great-grandmother Hanna’s estate. In the attic of the manor house, she discovers a Vietnamese fairy tale – and then Hanna tells her about her eventful past: how she grew up in Vietnam as the daughter of a wealthy family, and how she met her ‘jasmine sister’ Tanh, a girl born into poverty. As Melanie listens, fascinated, her great-grandmother regales her with tales of adventure among temples and rice fields, and the story of an extraordinary friendship between two girls separated by a fateful event. But Melanie finds solace not only in Hanna’s memories and unshakeable zest for life, but also in the company of widower Thomas, who looks after the manor’s gardens. And suddenly, she feels a little spark of hope stirring in her heart…

With sales totalling over two million copies, Corina Bomann’s popular historical sagas are regular bestsellers, and her readers adore her courageous women, passionate emotions and moving stories – including, most recently, the Waldfriede Clinic saga, which charts the eventful story of a hospital in Berlin.