Told with a calm compulsive force, and with an intimacy and maturity that defies her years, Christine Arnothy's story is a poignant coming-of-age memoir, and a remarkable tale of ordinary lives destroyed by war.

Just fifteen in 1945, Christine tells a moving story of fear and death, hunger and thirst as she hides in a cellar with her family from the marching tides of the German and Russian armies during the siege of Budapest.

Praying she would survive, asking herself whether her terrifying experiences will ever be over and mourning the loss of some of her fellow refugees, Christine found solace in her imagination and dreamt of having a life of her own.

Her account is a powerful and courageous chronicle of the horrors of war.