It was ended by 2,500 Russian tanks in Budapest alone, and perceived broken promises from the West, where leaders were distracted by the Suez Crisis and unwilling to make the Cold War a hot one.

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a bottom-up revolution, started by students and workers who called for reforms. I’ve also never struggled more with a book. Despite how exhausting writing can be, how emotionally draining it is, I always wanted to return to these pages, to linger in every corner of Budapest, to drag my fingers through this silver river I’d written. I’m not a runner, but it’s the endorphin high that runners talk about, or skydivers. It was an intoxicating feeling, an exhilarating rush. I’ve never been so enthralled, so caught up in a story as I was writing this one. The story unraveled on my screen, beneath my fingertips, the way a river unravels ahead of you, cutting through the land until it disappears, glittering into a horizon. Did I mean it literally? Figuratively? Did it matter? And who was she? I didn’t know at first who she was, or what I meant by she woke in pieces. The first line of This Rebel Heart came to me quickly. I need to know how it ends before I can really begin. After I have the first few lines, I go to the very end of the story and write the last chapter. 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. Katherine Locke is an award-winning author whose work spans picture books, young adult, middle grade, and romance novels.

This rebel heart by katherine locke