From the multi-award-winning author - a beautiful stunningly ambitious novel telling the story
of a young girl's battle for survival and search for the truth in occupied Vienna 'A fierce
celebration of hte messy nature of humanity itself ' Daily Mail 'A shimmering masterwork '
Alice Austen 'An extraordinary novel about resilience' Amanda Craig 'A mesmerising tapestry
woven across history' Gina Rippon 'Gripping and profound. A masterful work of rare complexity
that lingers and haunts' Christine Leunens Adelheid Brunner does not speak. She writes and
draws instead and her ambition is to own one thousand matchboxes. Her grandmother cannot make
sense of this but Adelheid will stop at nothing to achieve her dream. She makes herself
invisible hiding in cupboards with her pet rat Franz Joseph listening in on conversations
she can't fully comprehend. Then she meets Dr Asperger a man who lets children play all day
and who recognises the importance of matchboxes. He invites Adelheid to come and live at the
Vienna paediatric clinic where she and other children like herself will live under
observation. But the date is 1938 and the place is Vienna - a city of political instability a
place of increasing fear and violence. When the Nazis march into the city a new world is
created and difficult choices must be made. Why are the clinic's children disappearing and
where do they go? Adelheid starts to suspect that some of Dr Asperger's games are played for
the highest stakes. In order to survive she must play a game whose rules she cannot yet
understand. Triumphant and tragic soulful and spirited The Matchbox Girl is a burningly
brilliant book - that brings the stories of a generation of lost children into the light. 'A
vividly imagined story told with real drive and heart' Rachel Seiffert 'Unique and profoundly
human' Emma Darwin ' One of the most charismatic and companionable narrators I've ever come
across' Toby Litt 'The sheer brilliance of Alice Jolly's writing stopped me in my tracks
stole my breath' Angela Findlay 'An important powerful book so real I couldn't put it down'
Kathleen Jones
