I'm 20% in and have no idea what's going on. DNF. I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for my digital copy. I really enjoyed the story. I’m not a fan of historic fantasy but this book felt like a warm hug. The plot is taking place during the WWII and it follows the life of the residents of 33 place Brugman. There are many beautiful moments and some sad ones as betrayal and lies between the characters. I totally recommend this to everyone, it’s a very fast paced story.

Can’t wait to see the book published.

Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for this advanced copy. The historical fiction story surrounds residents at 33 Place Brugmann during WWII. You get a glimpse of each person’s life before and after the Nazi invasion. Each with hope, betrayal, loss, survival and suffering. It makes you feel like you are also living in this building listening to conversations around you but being careful of what you say as everyone can hear. Can’t wait to see this book on the shelves in bookstores in March 2025.

Thank you, Grove Atlantic Press and NetGalley, for the advance copy of this book.

Alice Austen has woven a convincing tale of what it was like to live in an apartment building in Belgium during World War II.

Everyone was vulnerable to other people’s possible fabrications. The most trivial knowledge about an acquaintance when shared with the Nazis could result in imprisonment, death by torture or removal to a concentration camp.

Some of the Nazi officers were compassionate as they held Jewish lives in the balance. This type of officer gave hope to some of the citizens, sustaining the wives of missing men enough for the women to carry on with the hope that they would live to give birth to their unborn children.

A compelling story.

Engaging and immersive. A recommended first purchase for collections where historical fiction is popular.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic/Grove Press and NetGalley for an advance copy of 33 Place Brugmann by Alice Austen.

The setting is an apartment building in Brussels, Belgium during the German occupation of the country. It follows the occupants of the eight apartments and the maid's quarters on the fifth floor. On the ground floor are the Everards, a notary, his wife and their two children who own the building. In apartment 2L is Mr. Ivo Van Cauter, a city official who moves in following the death of widow Boudrot in 1939. Across the hall is the DeBaerres, Martin, and attorney, his wife Katrin, a housewife and their adult son, Dirk, who is a student. Martin and Katrin both die, leaving Dirk to occupy the apartment alone. The third floor apartments are occupied by Colonel Herman Warlemont, a former member of the Belgian Armed Forces and a widower in 3L and Agathe Hobert, former cafe' proprietor in 3R. On the fourth floor in 4L are the Sauvins, widower architect Franois and his daughter, Charlotte, who he has raised alone after her mother died in childbirth and the Raphaels, fine art dealer Leo, wife Sophia and daughter Esther, and son Julian a student at Cambridge. The tenants are rounded out by Masha Balyayeva a refugee seamstress.

The story starts just before the German occupation with Masha and the Raphaels, all Jews, leaving Belgium ahead of the threat of the German's arrival. Masha goes to France with her lover Harry, who is a part of the resistance. The Raphaels end up in Scotland, with the exception of Julian who joins the RAF. It isn't until the Raphaels have left that Charlotte realizes that her feelings for Julian may have been more than just friends who had grown up together.

Charlotte instead marries Phillipe, a fellow student at university of Jewish descent, who also leaves ahead of the German occupation to join the RAF. Charlotte remains with her father who spends his days sketching and brewing beer that he shares with their downstairs neighbor, Colonel Warlemont.

Colonel Warlemont lives alone with his dog, Zipper, until he starts to take in misplaced deaf/mute individuals who generally stay for a few days before moving on to some place else. This is much to the annoyance of his neighbor across the hall, Agathe Hobart.

Agathe Hobart is the busybody of the building. Frequently spying on her neighbors comings and goings. She has distrust for everyone, but establishes an unexpected connection with Dirk, who is not a particularly likeable character in the beginning of the story.

Dirk does develop throughout the story, befriending Agathe, though be it for personal reasons to be able to borrow her car. However, what he does while borrowing her car brings a whole new depth to Dirk that we don't realize until very close to the end of the story.

Dirk's neighbor across the hall, Ivo Van Cauter is not only a city official, but also a Nazi sympathizer. His actions as such, puts him in a position to put most of his neighbors more ill at ease. It's his demands on Mr. Everard that almost brings down Colonel Warlemont and results in Francois Sauvin being detained by the Nazi's.

Each chapter is told from the perspective of the various characters, interweaving their stories in a way that depicts the level of distrust amongst neighbors during a time when no one is safe from scrutiny by the Nazis. From writing notes to each other while they are in the same apartment and burning them afterward to being watchful of each other and the interest the others are showing in themselves.

As a fan of historical fiction, I found the story line to be intuitive in the lives of those living in countries under German occupation. The difficulties just to survive on substandard rationing and having to be constantly vigilant of everything around you must have been exhausting. It makes it all so much clearer something my grandmother told us when she was alive. Having come to the United States in 1916 from Norway she escaped the German occupation of her home country. Her brother who stayed in Norway did tell her that during WWII the walls had ears and you had to be careful of what you said.

If you are looking for a story that depicts how the residents of occupied countries survived during WWII survived, I highly recommend 33 Place Brugmann.

There are some genuinely engrossing and even riveting moments, both small and large, in Alice Austen’s “33 Place Brugmann,” which individualizes the Nazi occupation of Brussels through the lives of the occupants of the street address of the title.
A particularly compelling small incident for me, for instance, comes when a color-blind girl ends up in trouble at school after a boy who hadn't known of her condition swaps her pencils, which had been labeled to accommodate her condition, and she ends up drawing something in a color other than what the teacher had requested, prompting the teacher to punish her for her “impertinence.” A small incident, as I say, in the context of the novel’s larger historical concern, but compelling for me nevertheless.
More in the novel’s larger sweep is the moment when a woman who’s been working as a spy is wounded by the Gestapo as she tries to help a downed RAF flier and she thinks she has reached safety only to have the situation turn on her in a distinctly unforeseen way. Or there’s the time when another flier who has been shot down makes his way to some farmers who vote on whether to help him or kill him.
Not just compelling in its story lines, though, the novel is also vivid in its descriptiveness, with a particularly dramatic instance coming when a female occupant of the house helps out at a clinic where she tends to soldiers with their “pocked, seared, torn flesh, bits and pieces of limbs missing.” Also particularly arresting for me was the depiction of another house occupant, “the Colonel,” who recalls how he “lost his youth to the Congo,” where he took in “unspeakable sights” such as baskets of cut-off hands, hands that in the Congo’s damp didn't dry out, but rotted and smelled. Reminiscent his account was for me, with how it both perplexed and horrified me, of how I was similarly bewildered and fascinated as a college freshman coming for the first time upon Hemingway’s “On the Quai at Smyrna.”
Riveting, though, as such moments in the novel were for me -- the pages fairly flew by for me in those moments – the novel’s overall effect was diminished somewhat for me by its conceit of the house serving as a framing device for the various stories of its inhabitants. But that nit on my part may have less to do with anything really problematic with the device than simply my strong personal preference for single-narrator presentation. Also, and again this may simply be an indication of my own personal preferences, I found the novel in spots waxing a bit too literary, particularly with its numerous references to Wittgenstein which no doubt amplified the novel’s concerns but left me somewhat cool, even with my having been a philosophy minor.
All in all, though, an estimable read, Austen’s novel, and to my mind particularly relevant in these increasingly scary times of ours in America where I felt that I couldn’t have been the only one to find in the veritable rapture I was seeing at the RNC convention parallels to the Nazi rallies of the ‘30s. And indeed no less an authoritarianism expert than Ruth Ben-Ghiat also expressed concern over the convention, though along with her concern she sounded a cautiously optimistic message if America would only heed it: “You know what to do, Americans. We can avoid this nightmare. Never become resigned or fatalistic. That’s what they want.”

I have had to ruminate for a day before writing this review. I found the book to be confusing at times, as to whom was speaking. In light of that, the book is written, so the reader gets a visceral feeling. The thoughts of the characters are brought to life. Their plight, their understanding of the world with the Nazi invasion and how desperately their lives have been altered. It’s a cleverly thought out plot focusing on the differences of the people housed in one particular apartment building. Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for granting this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own. #NetGalley, #GroveAtlantic.

What a marvelous book whose time and story remind us of the past and possibly the future. A story of love, betrayal, trust, and belief. The device of different voices telling different parts of the story was quite effective, the characters personalities shone I this title. Well worth the time to read.

33 Place Brugmann. Brussels, Belgium. “A modest and confident building…brick facade, stone balconies, and thick exterior walls give it the feel of a fortress that’s impervious to anything beyond…two identical apartments on each of three upper floors, an apartment on the ground floor…and the maid’s room at the center of the fifth level at the top…a world unto herself.”

2 April 1939. The residents will soon turn into ghosts and strangers. Daily, the building manager occupying the ground floor apartment, blasts his German radio station. The busybody Agathe, on the third floor, bakes and delivers butter cakes to her neighbor across the hall, a retired soldier from the Belgian Armed Forces. “I know everything because I hear everything-and not because I’m listening.” To avoid Agathe, art dealer Leo Raphael and family must tiptoe in stocking feet down the staircase, in the dead of night, to disappear.

Charlotte Sauvin and Esther Raphael’s fourth floor apartments are architectural mirror images. The seventeen year olds are besties. Esther dreams of being a nurse. Charlotte is a student attending the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. “The art world has gone underground. Everyone is aware of Hitler’s artistic aspirations and his failures and this is why artists who have not already been disappeared by the regime are disappearing themselves.”

Charlotte “feels the world as she sees it…There are no vivid bursts of color. Everything, even her emotion is in gray scale.” Her vision is achromatic. Francois Sauvin, Charlotte’s father, describes the trenches of WWI. “Color is no saving grace. It was a war in sepia-the trenches, the dirt, the uniforms, the faces…” History will repeat itself. “No one sees anything the same way…We stop trying to understand how others see the world,...we lose our compassion, our empathy…”.

Masha, a refugee, is the seamstress living in the attic apartment. She has always been the keeper of Charlotte’s secrets and comforter to the motherless girl. Suddenly, Masha has left. “How I missed [Charlotte] when my life took an unexpected turn and my absences from the building became more and more frequent". Madly in love with Harry, she reluctantly became part of spy and resistance operations.

Leaving art school after French and German students on both sides of the conflict joined up, Charlotte returned home putting her artistic talent to work at a hat shop. The proprietor employed both Jewish and non-Jewish workers. The compassionate boss did not require the Jewish employees to wear their mandated yellow stars during work hours. Suddenly, the building was condemned due to so called architectural concerns. The business was forced to close.

At 33 Place Burgmann, the citizens who were registered to live there would experience many life changing events during the years 1939-1942. “...one must be vigilant in these times. The world is closing in; we're oranges in a juicer. Fate hinges on comings and goings.”

This reader was totally invested in the lives of the building occupants. “Did strolling people walking among the chestnut trees in the Parc de Bruxelles know what was coming? Or were they holding on to a past they didn’t realize was gone and never coming back?”

A highly recommended read of historical fiction

Thank you Grove Atlantic Press and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

'33 Place Brugmann' by Alice Austen is a wonderful and well written debut novel, following the residents of the titular apartment building in Brussels just prior to the beginning of WWII.

The book is delivered over multiple view points of different residents, with more emphasis given to some of characters voices. This allows the reader deeper insight into the characters' motivations and emotions, other viewpoints serve to enrich the broader tapestry of the time. Austen masterfully uses this technique to enhance the complexity of the storyline, but also to allow readers to gain a deep understanding of the zeitgeist of Brussels during WWII. We are given insight into the lives of the heroic, the brave, the antisemetic, and the mundane. Together, these viewpoints create a multifaceted narrative that portrays the breadth of human experience during WWII, from heroism and hate to the quiet endurance of those caught in the crossfire.

The absence of a tidy resolution in this novel serves as a poignant symbol of the enduring impact of WWII. The characters are left navigating a world forever altered by conflict, where closure is a luxury few can afford amidst the ongoing turmoil and rebuilding efforts.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, it was a well constructed reflection on life in wartime. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading historical fiction.

Thanks NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC in exchange for this review!

[I received a review copy from the publisher via Netgalley]

Oh, I really do think this book will be a "love it or hate it" read for many people.

I am in the "love it with caveats" camp, although the major caveat is likely due to this being an uncorrected proof: the formatting for the Kindle ARC I received is quite bad, with oddly formatted wraparound text, occasional single paragraph breaks when two were clearly needed, parts of the novel where the title and author name were randomly interspersed in the text... definitely needs some major fixing there. I hope the publisher is able to fix this soon.

As for the actual story: <B>33 Place Brugmann</B> by Alice Austen follows the residents of a singular apartment building in Brussels on the eve of the Nazi invasion. As the war goes on, characters are forced to deal with the reality of living in an occupied country or, in some cases, the reality of being forced to flee said country.

What does one become, when the world changes so drastically? Can a community maintain itself in the face of constantly ripping seams? How do people manage--or rather, do they manage at all?

Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different resident of 33 Place Brugmann, giving the book an ensemble feel. However, there is a strong emphasis on a handful of residents, whose stories propel the narrative forward while other characters are lurking--and acting, in some cases--in the background.

The book feels, and I don't know how else to describe this so I don't know if this makes sense to anyone but myself, like it came from a European author rather than an American one. (And I say this with the disclaimer that of course, there are numerous American-written WW2 novels that also carry these traits.)

Here, the characters are all flawed and left wanting. The characters are human--incomplete, messy, filled with regrets, hopes, exhaustion, half-realized dreams. The story does not end tidily or particularly happily, reflecting the reality of so many real people's stories in WW2. We do not get a bow wrapping up what we'd love to know. There are betrayals and antisemitic characters and boring mundane realities within a country at war.

There is also a sense of the bizarre: visions (or are they?) that occur in the night, perhaps brought on by something otherworldly--or perhaps the effects of dwindling rations, illness, and stress. Like the rest of the novel, this vague supernatural element feels blunted, presented with the same forthright themes as frustrations of getting rations, suspecting betrayals in spy rings, and nosy neighbors in times of peril.

Overall, I would recommend giving <B>33 Place Brugmann</B> a read if you are looking for a WW2 novel that doesn't feel like a Hollywood epic, but something that reflects the frustrating, gritty, confusing reality of life during such times.

But I would also, perhaps, recommend waiting for the official published version rather than seeking out an advanced copy, as presumably the major formatting issue will be fixed before the book is published next March.

I really enjoyed the story. I think most readers of literary fiction will also enjoy it and I would recommend it. Pick this one up on publication day. You won’t be sorry.