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.
Karlskrona, Sweden, 1910. Liv feels constricted – and not just by the corset she puts on every day. Her loveless marriage to shipowner Sten Boregard, too, is stifling her. Her desire for freedom grows stronger when she meets Marlene, a sailor’s widow, who has been ostracised by the other sailors’ wives ever since her husband and his crew died on the high seas. But Marlene won’t let anyone bring her down, and Liv is impressed by her free spirit and energy. The pair become close friends, and when Liv unexpectedly inherits a rose-covered gamekeeper’s cottage in the woods, she and Marlene boldly decide to create a refuge where women can fulfil their true potential. They secretly breathe new life into ‘Rosenhag’ and its wildflower garden – but little do they know that not only their secret, but they themselves, are in grave danger…
Book 2: HAUS AUS ASCHE (June 2025)
Emily has been feeling like an outsider for months now. The Londoner can’t cope with everyday life any more, and has to give up her studies. Three months ago, her friend Liv fell onto the Tube tracks and died – Emily was standing right next to her, but can’t recall anything about the incident. The police thinks it was an accident, but Emily suspects there’s more to it. She must find a way to remember. But why is everyone she tries to talk to about it being so evasive? And what if she discovers a terrible truth about herself in the process? Little does Emily know that her life is already in serious danger…
Healers, shamans, priests, midwives, soothsayers: in antiquity, female communities and networks exchanged valuable, even life-saving, knowledge about nursing, healing, spirituality and sexuality. But in our patriarchal societies with their male-dominated academic discourse, female knowledge was often dismissed as irrelevant or un-serious and esoteric.