"Like Tracy Chevalier in Girl with the Pearl Earring, Gregson excels at developing strong, complex female voices; a swift plot; and a story that will hold readers from beginning to end."—BooklistWhen the men of a remote Hungarian village go off to war in 1916, the women left behind realize their lives are much better without them. Suddenly, they are not being beaten; they have time for friendships; they even find romance with the injured Italian soldiers staying just outside of town. For Sari, an intelligent girl who's always been an outcast (her fellow villagers suspect her of being a witch because of her medical knowledge), it's the first time in her life she's had friends. When the men return at war's end, the freedom Sari and the others have enjoyed is suddenly snatched from them, and they realize they need to do whatever it takes to hold onto it. Sari puts her medical knowledge to use to off her husband. Then she helps one of her friends. And another. When the word spreads, she realizes her problems are only beginning. This creeping and hugely readable first novel is based on a true story.

Christian by faith and Jewish under the law, Katalin struggles with her dual identity in a Hungary caught up in World War II and its aftermath. She and Istvan, a Jew, fall in love. They struggle with their desire for marriage and to have a child in the midst of the increasing threat from Nazi violence. Istvan is deported to a concentration camp; four months later Kata and family seek refuge with Christian friends. Some are paralyzed by fear; others, acting on their faith, risk their lives to protect them. Even the welcomed liberation by the Russian Army poses its dangers. With the war over, the arduous attempts to survive in a devastated country and to assemble the family merge into a new struggle: power is shifted toward Communism and society is even more polarized than ever. Confronted with the resurgence of hatred, Katalin needs to come to terms with her faith and identity, to make sense of her survival out of the Holocaust and to find a direction for her life. In her soul-searching, she recalls Parsifal's quest for the Grail - a recurring motif in the novel - and knows that her own quest will continue.