2024 FAPA Gold medal winner for Historical Fiction
2023 Finalist in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards
2022 New York City Big Book WINNER
2022 Independent Author Network) IAN FINALIST
2022 Shortlist for the Selfie Award by Publisher's Weekly
2021 FINALIST Self-Published Review Contest
Hungary 1944. The war comes late to Budapest. Nineteen-year-old Marika, forced out of nursing school, believes she and her Jewish family will remain safe, even as Nazi soldiers fill their cobbled streets. With Russians to their east and the Allies to their west, everyone assumes the war is nearly over. Her father, once a prominent engineer, returns to his passion for puppet making. Soon, she is pulled into the resistance to rescue orphans and displaced Jews while keeping her family one step ahead of Eichmann’s extermination plans.
As the world turns dark around Marika, the fanatical Arrow Cross Party, a ruthless group that listens to no one, including the Germans, unleashes a killing spree on the remaining Jews of Europe. One day, as peril intensifies, she must make a decision that puts her in extreme danger to save herself, her family, and the orphans she’s sheltered. Will she regret that moment for the rest of her life?