When We Were Young

Description

As a young bride-to-be navigates the days before her wedding, three generations of women come together in a page-turning novel full of family secrets, heartwrenching drama, and a second chance at the love of a lifetime. Joey Abrams is trying to find herself. After quitting a career in big law, she's now a struggling artist. Yet she's found the nice Jewish boy of her dreams, so she thinks she may finally be on the right path. But the secrets Joey's been keeping about her family may just destroy the life she's so carefully building. Joey's mother is planning an extravagant wedding as if her life depends on it, and as if she knows a thing about happily ever after. But Joey knows better. Her parents' marriage isn't what it seems, and Joey's relationship with her mother is straining at the seams. And her beloved grandmother, always Joey's touchstone and confidant, is suddenly acting strange, talking for the first time about her time in Greece during the war. Is this the beginnings of dementia? Or is her grandmother keeping secrets of her own? As Joey navigates the days leading up to her wedding, the one person she thought she'd never see again appears. Her first love, back to remind her of the pact they made over a decade ago, one that could blow wide Joey's plans for her future, and leave her family in ruins.

Jaclyn Goldis is a graduate of University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and NYU Law. After practicing trust and estate law at a large Chicago law firm for seven-plus years, she left her job to travel the world and write novels. She lives in Tel Aviv.

"A multi-generational story of secrets, old and new, and the lingering effects of love, loss, and lies. When We Were Young transports the reader from WW2-era Greece to modern-day Florida in a gripping and entertaining story that will tug at the heart. A layered and lovely debut."--Yvette Manessis Corporon, international bestselling author of When The Cypress Whispers "Few characters and stories pull me in and hold on as deeply as those in this stunning debut. Through a tale spanning eighty years, the author made me long to leap inside the pages, as I was transported by lives that still haunt me in the best of ways." --Linda Sivertsen, bestselling author & host of the Beautiful Writers Podcast "This illuminating contemporary novel celebrates love and family with three generations of women tested by secrets from the past."--Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Names