Twenty years after leaving her, the great love of Esther's life sends a telegram. Tomorrow, he tells her, he is coming back. Esther has not forgotten that her dazzling lover is a fantasist and a liar, nor that he caused her unimaginable hurt. But she also remembers how he made her feel, how he woke a part of her that has ever since been sleeping.

A castle at the foot of the Carpathian mountains in the 1930s. Two men, inseparable in their youth, meet for the first time in 41 years. They have spent their lives waiting for this moment. Four decades earlier a murky, traumatic event had led to their sudden separation.

Two decades after leaving her, the great love of Esther's life sends her a telegram. Tomorrow, he tells her, he is coming back. Esther and her cousin Nunu are thrown into confusion: until now their existence has been tranquil, self-governing, and they know that the mercurial Lajos will change all of that.

It is May 1918, war is sweeping Europe, and a group of boys await graduation in their near-deserted town. Drawn close by an unspoken fear of leaving home to fight, they retreat into a clandestine world of codes, hideaways and fierce invention - until one day a stranger enters their lives and their secret is exposed.

The novel Embers is selling in tens of thousand in a number of countries. This memoir of its author depicts Hungary between 1944 and 1948.