Train to Trieste

An incandescent love story—a thrilling debut novel—that moves from Romania to America, and from passionate infatuation to profound understanding.

In the summer of 1977, seventeen-year-old Mona Manoliu falls in love with Mihai, a green-eyed boy who lives in Brasov, the romantic mountain city where she spends her summers. But under the Ceausescu dictatorship, paranoia infects everyone; and Mona begins to suspect that Mihai is part of the secret police. As food shortages worsen, as her loved ones begin to disappear, Mona realizes she must leave. She struggles to bury her longing for the past, yet she finds herself compelled to return, determined to learn the truth about her one great love.