CSARDAS- DIANE PEARSON ( HISTORICAL ROMANCE)

Book: paperback. Poor cover condition. 680 pages. 1976 edition. slight water damge on top of pages not writing till page 83.

A review from a reader on Amazon.com:  was really curious about this novel. I guess there are not too much foreign writers who write novels about my country's history. I'm glad I bought it, because it is really a good novel - a family saga set in Hungary of the first half of the 20th century. It begins (in a very Gone With The Wind-like way) with the story of two beautiful sisters, Malie and Eva, the admired belles of a small town. Then the first world war breaks out and their world changes forever. They survive and move on with their lives, both of them get married - Malie (the calm and quiet older sister), who is mourning over the loss of the young soldier she loved, has to marry a wealthy man in order to save the family, but her marriage after all turns out to be happy; Eva, on the other side, is unhappily married to the brother of the man she loves, while her beloved has to marry her plain-looking cousin. All their personal troubles and tragedies are dwarfed when the World War II breaks out and brings danger and death to the partly Jewish family. The story ends with the new generation growing up in the new, Communist state.