Brought to you by Penguin.

Another undisclosed facet of her million secrets glittered before us...

Emerence is a domestic servant – strong, fierce, eccentric, and with a reputation for being a first-rate housekeeper. When Magda, a young Hungarian writer, takes her on to help around the house, she never imagines that this will ignite one of the most important relationships of her life.

It takes twenty years for a complex trust between the two women to be slowly, carefully built. Yet beneath her indomitable exterior, Emerence shields a hidden past, and a fragile present, the exposure of which will shift the course of both their lives irreversibly.

''A deeply strange and equally affecting book, a dark domestic fairy tale'' New York Times

Translated by Len Rix

© Magda Szabó 2005 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Brought to you by Penguin.

Another undisclosed facet of her million secrets glittered before us...

Emerence is a domestic servant – strong, fierce, eccentric, and with a reputation for being a first-rate housekeeper. When Magda, a young Hungarian writer, takes her on to help around the house, she never imagines that this will ignite one of the most important relationships of her life.

It takes twenty years for a complex trust between the two women to be slowly, carefully built. Yet beneath her indomitable exterior, Emerence shields a hidden past, and a fragile present, the exposure of which will shift the course of both their lives irreversibly.

''A deeply strange and equally affecting book, a dark domestic fairy tale'' New York Times

Translated by Len Rix

© Magda Szabó 2005 (P) Penguin Audio 2025