Young Magda - a naughty, lovable Mary Magdalene - is sent to live in Nazareth when her mother dies. In Nazareth she meets Mary, who becomes her best friend. Mary, who is unwed, confides in Magda that she is with child. Magda stands by her friend saying, "I can't wait to see what a Messiah looks like." When Mary's son Jesus begins his ministry, Magda is his beautiful companion and wealthy patroness. But when he rebuffs her sexual advances, she deserts him, going off on a debauched, sexual spree. Months later they reunite after Jesus intervenes in her stoning. Jesus' enemies, upset by his claims to be the Son of God, convince the Romans to crucify him. But Magda, a powerful, resourceful woman, conspires to save him from dying on the cross, a plot that is foiled by Jesus, who is intent on doing the will of God. Revived, Jesus comforts Magda after she learns that her childhood was a lie. He exorcises her demons, but one survives - lust. Magda, fearing Jesus' ascension into heaven is imminent, begs him to make love to her. The finale is a tender love scene where Jesus resists Magda's seductive charm...or does he?

Young Magda a naughty, lovable Mary Magdalene is sent to live in Nazareth when her mother dies. In Nazareth she meets Mary, who becomes her best friend. Mary, who is unwed, confides in Magda that she is with child. Magda stands by her friend saying, I cant wait to see what a Messiah looks like. When Marys son Jesus begins his ministry, Magda is his beautiful companion and wealthy patroness. But when he rebuffs her sexual advances, she deserts him, going off on a debauched, sexual spree. Months later they reunite after Jesus intervenes in her stoning. Jesus enemies, upset by his claims to be the Son of God, convince the Romans to crucify him. But Magda, a powerful, resourceful woman, conspires to save him from dying on the cross, a plot that is foiled by Jesus, who is intent on doing the will of God. Revived, Jesus comforts Magda after she learns that her childhood was a lie. He exorcises her demons, but one survives lust. Magda, fearing Jesus ascension into heaven is imminent, begs him to make love to her. The finale is a tender love scene where Jesus resists Magdas seductive charmor does he?

FINALIST FOR THE 2017 PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE From the author of The Door, selected as one of the New York Times "10 Best Books of 2015," this is a heartwrenching tale about a group of friends and lovers torn apart by the German occupation of Budapest during World War II. In prewar Budapest three families live side by side on gracious Katalin Street, their lives closely intertwined. A game is played by the four children in which Bálint, the promising son of the Major, invariably chooses Irén Elekes, the headmaster’s dutiful elder daughter, over her younger sister, the scatterbrained Blanka, and little Henriette Held, the daughter of the Jewish dentist. Their lives are torn apart in 1944 by the German occupation, which only the Elekes family survives intact. The postwar regime relocates them to a cramped Soviet-style apartment and they struggle to come to terms with social and political change, personal loss, and unstated feelings of guilt over the deportation of the Held parents and the death of little Henriette, who had been left in their protection. But the girl survives in a miasmal afterlife, and reappears at key moments as a mute witness to the inescapable power of past events. As in The Door and Iza’s Ballad, Magda Szabó conducts a clear-eyed investigation into the ways in which we inflict suffering on those we love. Katalin Street, which won the 2007 Prix Cévennes for Best European novel, is a poignant, somber, at times harrowing book, but beautifully conceived and truly unforgettable.

After the death of her mother, a young Torontonian teenager ventures to Romania in the early 1900s, seeking the comfort of her only known surviving family, a great-aunt with whom she holds a strong bond. Despite the new, peaceful life she is beginning to forge for herself, the girl suddenly finds herself caught in the middle of an ancient and deadly family mystery that threatens to destroy all she has built-up.

To survive the long shadow of the Third Reich, many children were placed in hiding, forced to keep their true identities--names, religion, places of birth, even gender--secret. Among these "hidden children" was Evelyne Juliette, born in Paris to privileged Hungarian immigrants of high intellect and great passion. Scarcely a year following her birth, France would fall to the Nazis, plunging Europe further into chaos and placing Evi's family among hundreds of thousands on the run. Her father, forced to go underground, never again emerged. Her mother, the indomitable Magda, managed to send her young daughter to temporary safety before being imprisoned in a forced labor camp. Evi, just barely three, was eventually brought by an aunt to Budapest under her cousin's passport. "Claude Pollak" would be only the first of many false identities assumed to protect the shattered remnants of this young child's life. Brimming with novelistic detail, vivid characterizations, and a sharply observed emotional terrain, Magda's Daughter depicts, in the words of the author herself, the life of a "perpetual refugee," forced by historical circumstance to live in rootless exile, while yearning for something she never really knew--life "before." Evi Blaikie, a gifted storyteller, writes against the limits of language and defies traditional definitions of "survivorship," while reminding us that no war is ever over until the last survivor is gone.

Sixty-four-year-old Dan OHalloran, a once-renowned national sports broadcaster, has made some poor decisions regarding friends, finances, and alcohol. Now a reporter at a local television network in California, he finds himself unemployed, fired from his job for coming in late, being unkempt, and hungover. But his boss, a friend, offers him a chance at renewal. OHalloran moves to Carmel, where he attacks his fresh start with a positive outlook. Hes intrigued when he meets Magda, his beautiful, young neighbor. She confides in OHalloran, telling him about her questionable family history, a possible connection to the mafia. Magda doesnt know if shes in hiding or just an ordinary person living in a lovely little house in Carmel. As a friend, he agrees to accompany her to Italy so she can begin to sort out the details of her past. What they learn surprises them. As Magda comes to terms with her new reality, tragedy strikes.