When I sit down to write a book, I need to know the first line. But when a student revolutionary and an angel of death enter her life, she discovers the support and inspiration she needs to find her voice and make a painful choice: Does she fight to survive or to free the country she loves that has never loved her back?īelow, Locke introduces the first chapter of This Rebel Heart, due out on April 5. Now, after her parents’ public exoneration sparks civil unrest, Csilla worries who in her life she can trust. But the river could not protect her parents from being executed by the Soviet police seven years ago. Csilla has a special connection with the Danube River that runs through Budapest - it whispers to and protects her, and it saved her family from being taken by Nazis in 1944. The novel follows Csilla, a young Jewish newspaper typist who’s preparing to flee to Israel with her aunt. Their upcoming YA fantasy, This Rebel Heart, is set in 1956 Budapest, a city that has been drained of color since World War II.

With queer representation, fabulist elements, and a pivotal but little-known historical moment, This Rebel Heart is Katherine Locke's tour de force.Katherine Locke is an award-winning author whose work spans picture books, young adult, middle grade, and romance novels. As the protests in other countries spur talk of a larger revolution in Hungary, Csilla must decide if she believes in the promise and magic of her deeply flawed country enough to risk her life to help save it, or if she should let it burn to the ground. But her carefully laid plans fall to pieces when her parents are unexpectedly, publicly exonerated. Now Csilla keeps her head down, planning her escape from this country that has never loved her the way she loves it. Before Csilla knew things about her father's legacy that she wishes she could forget. Before her parents were murdered by the Soviet police. But that was before the Communists seized power.

During WWII, the river kept her family safe when they needed it most-safe from the Holocaust.

In the middle of Budapest, there is a river. “A haunting, beautiful read that centers queer Jewish characters.” - BuzzFeed A tumultuous tale of the student-led 1956 Hungarian revolution-and an all too timely look at the impact of Communism and the USSR in Eastern Europe-set in a fabulist, colorless post-WWII Budapest from Sydney Taylor Honor winner Katherine Locke.

This rebel heart by katherine locke