After liberation from Gross-Rosen concentration camp and months in a hospital following the end of World War II, Jewish Zofia Lederman, 18, goes in search of her younger brother, Abek. When a Russian officer tells her that Abek may be at a refugee camp in Germany with other survivors of Dachau, she makes her way there. At the camp, Zofia forms bonds with other refugees, including Josef. The two are drawn to each other and a romance slowly develops. Meanwhile, she continues her search for Abek. It feels like a miracle when her brother shows up at the camp. He was only 12 the last time she saw him; now he is a young man, one who remembers little about their lives and family years before. Many ways that Holocaust survivors and others coped and struggled after the war plays out in the lives and experiences of Zofia and other characters in this arresting novel. Zofia's own struggle to reconcile her memories and desires with reality, and to ground herself in the present while being haunted by the past, is at the heart of this moving story. (Age 12 and older)