The Lost Wife

A charming novel about a love torn apart by war.

In the final moments of peace in pre-war Prague, a young art student, Lenka, and a medical student, Josef, fall in love. Believing in a brighter future, they marry – but their dreams are soon shattered by the approaching Nazi invasion. Lenka and Josef are separated and must face the war alone.

Josef has emigrated to America, where he leads a successful life as a respected obstetrician. However, deep in his heart, he still thinks of his love, Lenka, who remained in occupied Czechoslovakia. He believes she died during the war. But Lenka survived, ending up in the Nazi ghetto of Terezín, where she relied on her artistic skills and memories of her husband, whom she had lost all hope of ever seeing again.

Then, after decades of separation and thousands of kilometres between them, an unexpected meeting occurs in New York. They run into each other and observe one another in silence. Will they recognise each other? Will they take the second chance that fate has prepared for them?