On the eve of the Nazi occupation, in the heart of Brussels, life for the residents of eight apartments at 33 Place Brugmann is about to change forever.
Charlotte Sauvin, an art student raised by her beloved architect father in apartment 4L, knows all the details of the building and its people: how light falls on gleaming wood and voices echo off marble, the distinct knock of her dear friend, Julian Raphaël, the eldest son of the art dealer’s family across the hall. Then the Raphaëls disappear, leaving behind everything but their invaluable art collection, which mysteriously vanishes.
All that’s familiar fractures when whispers of German occupation become reality. A Nazi functionary moves into the building, and the residents’ lives become increasingly entwined. Charlotte’s godmother Masha, a beautiful seamstress upstairs, deepens her dangerous affair with a wartime compatriot of Colonel Warlemont in 3L—a man far more calculating than his neighbors believe. As relationships shift and new alliances form, the question of who to trust becomes a matter of life and death.
In the face of their perilous new reality, every member of this accidental community will discover they are not the person they believed themself to be. When confronted with a cruel choice—submit to the regime or risk their lives to save one another—each learns the truth about what, and who, matters to them the most.
A propulsive and hopeful tour de force, 33 Place Brugmann champions the restorative power of love, courage, and art in times of great threat.
Praise for 33 Place Brugmann:
A Winter/Spring 2025 Indies Introduce Pick
“In 33 Place Brugmann, a seemingly ordinary apartment building in the heart of Brussels becomes a microcosm of a world on the brink of war. Through multiple perspectives, Alice Austen weaves an extraordinary tapestry of lives intertwined by fate, fear, and resilience as Europe teeters on the edge of chaos in 1939. Offering a fresh perspective on a much-written-about era, this profoundly moving novel demonstrates the power of storytelling to illuminate the darkest corners of history.” —Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train
“33 Place Brugmann is an achingly suspenseful historical novel, sad at moments, but always intriguing, with a complex cast of vivid and involving characters. Wonderful reading.”—Scott Turow, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Presumed Innocent
“33 Place Brugmann is a riveting portrait of community during a time when the very notion of community was under siege. A master of time and place, Austen has a historian’s grasp of detail and a storyteller’s command of suspense. This is a beautiful and important novel.”—Jessica Shattuck, author of Last House and The Women in the Castle
“A work of art—stylish, charming and magnetic. There is a crisp immediacy in the writing so that the eve of a world war is now, here, close and not in the sepia colored past.”—Leila Aboulela, author of River Spirit
“In 33 Place Brugmann, Alice Austen is at ease with storytelling; the thoughts on art, music, mathematics, and architecture are awesome; the characters are marvelous—how not to love Charlotte and her father . . . What an achievement for a first novel. And the author manages to do something very different in a very written about period.”—Anik Lapointe, Salamandra (Spain)
“[A] remarkable novel—which has made me laugh, cry and think more than any other book I’ve read for a long time.”—Allegra Le Fanu, Bloomsbury (United Kingdom)
“A very bright and enthralling novel. I really loved that the author managed to draw such complex characters and the multilayered intrigue with many compelling topics. I was amazed by how she describes the conflictual relationship between the Flemish and the Walloon intertwined with all the spy intrigue that keeps you nervous until the end.”—Bénédicte Lombardo, Editions du Seuil (France)
“[33 Place Brugmann] is so very special, I love the voices, the composition, the wonderful idea, just everything about it, what a treasure! I can’t stop reading!”—Madlen Reimer, S. Fischer Verlag (Germany)
“I was transfixed from the onset and drawn into the lives of the protagonists, be it Charlotte, the Raphaels, Masha, all of them really; they all have their own voice, demons and histories to deal with and an uncertain future ahead of them . . . A beautiful novel.”—Renate Liesker, Ambo Anthos (Holland)
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