"Jessica Keener has written a gorgeous, lyrical, and sweeping novel about the tangled web of past and present. Suspenseful, perceptive, fast-paced, and ultimately restorative." -Susan Henderson, author of Up from the Blue
Budapest: gorgeous city of secrets, with ties to a shadowy, bloody past. It is to this enigmatic European capital that a young American couple, Annie and Will, move from Boston with their infant son shortly after the fall of the Communist regime. For Annie, it is an effort to escape the ghosts that haunt her past, and Will wants simply to seize the chance to build a new future for his family.
Eight months after their move, their efforts to assimilate are thrown into turmoil when they receive a message from friends in the US asking that they check up on an elderly man, a fiercely independent Jewish American WWII veteran who helped free Hungarian Jews from a Nazi prison camp. They soon learn that the man, Edward Weiss, has come to Hungary to exact revenge on someone he is convinced seduced, married, and then murdered his daughter.
Annie, unable to resist anyone's call for help, recklessly joins in the old man's plan to track down his former son-in-law and confront him, while Will, pragmatic and cautious by nature, insists they have nothing to do with Weiss and his vendetta. What Annie does not anticipate is that in helping Edward she will become enmeshed in a dark and deadly conflict that will end in tragedy and a stunning loss of innocence.
Atmospheric and surprising, Strangers in Budapest is, as bestselling novelist Caroline Leavitt says, a "dazzlingly original tale about home, loss, and the persistence of love." Jessica Keener is the author of the bestselling novel Night Swim and an award-winning short story collection, Women in Bed. Like the character in her novel, she lived in Budapest in the 1990s; she now lives with her husband in the Boston area, where she is a writing consultant for Grub Street. A December 2017 Indie Next Pick
"Jessica Keener writes about post-communist Hungary with the heart and specificity of someone who's lived it . . . her writing sparkles . . . Strangers in Budapest doesn't exoticize or patronize its location; rather, in a rare achievement for an American novel of this international emphasis, it revels in the complexity of its appeal."
-Entertainment Weekly
"Full of seduction and intrigue, this thrilling novel is a perfect homage to a city in transition."
-Real Simple
"In her tense and atmospheric thriller . . . Keener establishes a definitive sense of time and place, makes a sensitive portrait of expat life, and examines ideas of what we lose, where we find home, and how love can and cannot survive."
-The Boston Globe
"This haunting, beautifully written story emerges from the shadows and narrow streets of Budapest and its historic mysteries to raise intriguing questions about the power of the past, grief, guilt, the endurance of pain and whether redemption is a worthy goal."
-Hadassah Magazine
"With chills lurking around each corner, this second novel by author Jessica Keener is the perfect page-turner for late autumn."
-Boston Magazine
"Full of suspense . . . Keener depicts Budapest as its own character, with beauty, suffering and colorful revolutionary attitudes."
-Improper Bostonian
"A slow burn of an international psychological thriller. Recommended for fans of Chris Pavone."
-Library Journal
"Keener immerses the reader in Budapest's post-communist period in all its tumultuous glory . . . the author combines strong characters and a riveting plot to craft a memorable novel."
-Publishers Weekly
"Keener's second psychological novel, set in modern Hungary, dramatizes both national and personal outcomes of harrowing past events. Budapest becomes a powerful symbol of past horrors, lush culture, and an unce
