ABIGAIL

This popular 1970 Hungarian novel, in English for the first time, is now a superb audiobook narrated by Samantha Desz. She brings a warm enthusiasm and expert Hungarian pronunciation to the story of Gina, a teenager living in Budapest during WWII. Gina's comfortable life is upended when her father whisks her off to a draconian boarding school in the countryside. Desz narrates Gina's experiences there with the perfect combination of irony, sorrow, and fear as Gina navigates the strange new world. Desz's voices for the other girls are full of the insouciance of youth. The war outside their door barely makes an impression--but is coming. Listeners will be carried along by a riveting plot in the hands of an expert storyteller. D.G.P. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2021]