Sacrament

Hungarians have always fought for freedom. In 896 they swept down from the Siberian plain, when Árpád led ancient Magyars from the Carpathian Basin across the Eastern European steppe, mixing with indigenous tribes. The Magyars brought their love of spicy food, gypsy music, poetry and freedom. Hungarians have been conquered by Mongols, Turks, Austrians, Nazis and Soviets. Their love of freedom persisted. The dual monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Central Europe, between 1867 and 1918, ruled Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Poland, Romania, Italy, Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro. After the world wars and the failed peoples' revolution in 1956, Hungary was fractured, scattering Hungarians like raisins in a cake. Eva Barthold is an American writer born in 1959 in the Bronx to parents who had escaped Budapest after the October '56 revolution. In the summer of 1989, she accepts a writing assignment that sends her to Budapest "the jewel in the Danube." Budapest is celebrating a moment of triumph when a border guard at Sopron opened the gate allowing East Germans to cross to the West. Hungarians punched a hole in the Iron Curtain. Eva is ghost writing a book about a Hungarian woman who started a cosmetic company in New York that features a secret ingredient for youthful beauty. While researching the book, Eva uncovers her connection with a sixteenth century noblewoman known as "the blood countess" who lived in the same area where her father was born. Eva, who grew up in New York, hopes to discover what it is about herself that is Hungarian. In Budapest, her life is threatened, she becomes entangled in political intrigue when she falls in love with a young Hungarian student political reformer. Eva's family has noble Hungarian roots: Little does she know how bloody.