33 Place Brugmann
The international bestseller
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33 Place Brugmann
Narrated by:
Billie Fulford-Brown, Danielle Cohen, James Meunier, Jilly Bond, Joshua Riley, Matthew Lloyd Davies, Nicholas Boulton, Raphael Corkhill, Shiromi Arserio, Simon Slater
Buy Now for $27.67
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By:
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Alice Austen
Summary
An unforgettable historical debut set in Second World War Brussels: exploring love, resistance and courage in all their forms
‘I adored it … It finds courage and love amidst the ruins, and I read with my heart in my mouth’ Rachel Joyce
‘A beautiful and deeply engaging novel' Ann Patchett
‘A richly textured, finely written, deeply thoughtful novel’ William Boyd
‘Historical fiction at its immersive, absorbing best’ Paula McLain
Charlotte Sauvin has always seen the world differently. At home on 33 Place Brugmann, in the heart of Brussels, her father and her closest friends and neighbours – the Raphaëls from the fourth floor, and Masha from the fifth – have ensured her secret is safe. But when the Nazis invade Belgium, and Masha and the Raphaëls disappear, Charlotte must navigate her new world alone.
Who can Charlotte trust in this world - where everyone is watching, and everyone is harbouring their own secrets? As the months pass, and the shadow of war darkens, Charlotte and her neighbours must face what – and who – truly matters to them most – and summon the courage to fight for more than just survival.
With soaring imagination and profound intimacy, 33 Place Brugmann is a captivating and devastating celebration of the power of love, courage and art in times of great threat.
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Critic Reviews
The world of 33 Place Brugmann is spacious and intricately connected, filled with both horror and brilliant light. Alice Austen uses her considerable gifts to remind us that the past and the present are more connected than we wish to believe, and that vigilance, loyalty and art hold the key to survival. This is a beautiful and deeply engaging novel (Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake)
An astonishingly accomplished debut ... Though the story contains its share of heartbreak, it’s the most fun we’ve had reading about World War II in years
Austen ably shifts viewpoints by chapter, allowing for multiple perspectives on characters whose stories weave together as they endure the war’s progression
A richly textured, finely written, deeply thoughtful novel that resonates in the mind. A hugely impressive debut (William Boyd)
Delicate and devastating, disruptive and beautiful, 33 Place Brugmann follows the intertwined lives of the residents of one building in Brussels during Nazi occupation - both within their individual apartments, and also as they try to make their way in the rapidly changing and diminishing outside world. Not only I am filled with admiration for the skill and ambition of this book, I also adored it. It’s a celebration of love, art and human decency when everything is reduced to the basics (Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry)
33 Place Brugmann is set in the turmoil of the Nazi occupation of Belgium. Austen’s device of using one apartment building, its memorable tenants, and their individual transformations is brilliant. A compelling and beautiful read (Abraham Verghese, New York Times-bestselling author of The Covenant of Water)
In 33 Place Brugmann, Alice Austen conjures war-tested, occupied Brussels with uncanny potency and precision. This is historical fiction at its immersive, absorbing best. A riveting and original debut from a writer to watch (Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife)
33 Place Brugmann is an achingly suspenseful historical novel, sad at moments, but always intriguing, with a complex cast of vivid and involving characters. Wonderful reading (Scott Turow, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Presumed Innocent)
A work of art - stylish, charming and magnetic. There is a crisp immediacy in the writing so that the eve of a world war is now, here, close and not in the sepia colored past (Leila Aboulela, author of River Spirit)
Wonderful characters, wonderful readings.
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