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

Oprah Daily, The Best New Books to Read This Spring

Austen ably shifts viewpoints by chapter, allowing for multiple perspectives on characters whose stories weave together as they endure the war's progression

Washington Post, 10 noteworthy books for March

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