On honeymoon in Venice in 1928
Viktor and Liesel Landauer face a new world
when they meet brilliant architect Rainer von Abt.
Soon, on a hillside near a provincial Czech town,
the Landauer house with its celebrated Glass Room
will become a modernist masterpiece of travertine
floors and onyx walls, filled with light and optimism.
But as Viktor is Jewish, when Nazi troops arrive
the family must flee.

The house slips from hand to hand, Nazi to Soviet
and finally to the Czechoslovak state . It becomes
a laboratory, a shelter from the storm of war, and
a place where the broken and the ruined find some
kind of comfort until, with the collapse of Communism,
the Landauers can finally return to where
their story began

Mawer creates a passionately detailed portrait of
individuals struggling to snatch order and happiness from
frightening, irrational times truly enjoyable to read
Rachel Aspden, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Exciting, profoundly affecting and altogether wonderful
DAILY MAIL