In post-Communist Romania, on the border with Transylvania, the sleepy little town of B. is losing its young people to the West. A young painter returned from Paris and her eccentric great-aunt seem unconcerned with the decline of the town, until a mutilated corpse is found in the family crypt of Prince Vlad the Impaler, better known as Dracula. As the world’s attention turns to B., the mayor and his son take advantage and turn the town into a vampire-inspired theme park. Tourists flock, but beneath the surface ancient horrors live on.  This is a breathtaking, atmospheric tale of revenge, extremism and the longing for a strong leader, for a strict, cruel judge - like Dracula.

Victoria has just recently moved from Zurich back to her hometown of Bucharest when the bank where she works is robbed. Put on leave so that she can process the trauma of the robbery, Victoria strolls around town. Each street triggers sudden visions as memories from her childhood under the Ceausescu regime begin to mix with the radically changed city and the strange world in which she now finds herself. As the walls of reality begin to crumble, Victoria and her former self cross paths with the bank robber and a rich cast of characters, weaving a vivid portrait of Romania and one woman's self-discovery. In her stunning second novel, Swiss-Romanian writer Dana Grigorcea paints a series of extraordinarily colourful pictures. With humor and wit, she describes a world full of myriad surprises where new and old cultures weave together--a world bursting with character and spirit.

Now in paperback, a haunting story of trauma, memory, and healing in post-Cold War Romania. Victoria has just recently moved from Zurich back to her hometown of Bucharest when the bank where she works is robbed. Put on leave so that she can process the trauma of the robbery, Victoria strolls around town. Each street triggers sudden visions as memories from her childhood under the Ceausescu regime begin to mix with the radically changed city and the strange world in which she now finds herself. As the walls of reality begin to crumble, Victoria and her former self cross paths with the bank robber and a rich cast of characters, weaving a vivid portrait of Romania and one woman's self-discovery. In her stunning second novel, Swiss-Romanian writer Dana Grigorcea paints a series of extraordinarily colorful pictures. With humor and wit, she describes a world full of myriad surprises where new and old cultures weave together-a world bursting with character and spirit.