Roxanne Veletzos Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Roxanne Veletzos is a historical fiction novelist from Romania who is best known for her debut novel “The Girl They Left Behind. “

She was born in Bucharest and spent much of her childhood there and only moved to California in the United States in her teenage years.

It was while she was living in California that she began writing short stories about her home back in Bucharest Romania.

In the earlier days, she wrote as a form of catharsis as she made the transition to a new culture. Later on, she started writing simply in pursuit of what had then turned into an unrelenting passion.

When she was older, she went to college where she graduated with a journalism degree. Following her graduation, she worked as a marketing manager, content writer, and editor for several Fortune 500 companies.

Veletzos published “The Girl They Left Behind” her debut novel in 2018 and the novel went on to become a bestselling title. The work has now become an international bestseller and has been published in ten countries.
The inspiration for her debut work comes from a very interesting familial experience.

When Roxanne was very young, she discovered that her mother had been adopted, even though it would take many years before she told her the full story of her adoption.
She still remembers how her mother had one day sat her down one day and tearfully told her that when she was a toddler, she had been abandoned.

This had happened in the winter of 1941, at a time when there was a vicious pogrom against the Jews was raging in Bucharest.

Her mother had also told her that while she loved and was very loyal to the couple that had brought her up, she had always wanted to find out what happened to her biological parents and if it was possible to reunite with them.
Given that she was a very impressionable teen at the time, the story of her unknown family forced to leave their kid behind and flee crushing violence was permanently imprinted in her mind.

This would become the soul and heart of her debut novel “The Girl They Left Behind.” The novel has now been published in several countries including the Czech Republic, Canada, Slovakia, Australia, Netherlands, and Portugal.

Roxanne Veletzos currently makes her home in the San Francisco Bay Area where she lives with her husband and kids. Her most rewarding experience ever since she was published is just to know that her audience is finding resonance with her novels.
The reason for this is that much of her works and especially her debut novel are inspired by her family history or otherwise linked to her heritage, which makes everything so deeply important and personal.
She has always loved and been fascinated by how books and storytelling in general connect people across distance and time and even across cultures.

One of her happiest moments was when one of her readers from her native Romania where her debut is set wrote a thank you note to her for sharing what her generation had endured with an audience from across the world.
It was a note that brought Roxanne to tears and she has never forgotten the words since.

Roxanne Veletzos’ “The Girl They Left Behind” is a work set in 1941 during a freezing winter night in Bucharest when a Jewish kid is found abandoned on the steps of an apartment building.
Romania had recently allied itself with the Third Reich, putting the Jewish population in the country in great danger as violent persecution had gone up several notches.

The little girl is sent to an orphanage where she is eventually adopted by a childless but wealthy couple.

Assimilating to her new life, Natalia soon forgets her biological parents and does not remember that period of her life when the country finally came under Soviet rule.
But as she becomes an adult in a hopeless and bleak world, traces of her true identity begin to surface and result in a gradual discovery to change her destiny.

At some point, she develops a crush on an intense young man named Victor who had become friends with her family years earlier.

Now in her early twenties, she is employed at a fruit packing warehouse and she once again meets Victor, who is now a high-ranking government official in Romania’s Communist government.
This time around, the two find themselves in an intense love affair despite Victor’s dark secrets and the many challenges all around.

When Natalia has the opportunity of a lifetime for freedom, Victor will do anything to help her get away, even if it means he will lose her.

She is also at a crossroads as she has to choose between finally getting to live life on her own terms and leaving the man she has come to love behind.

“When the Summer Was Ours” by Roxanne Veletzos is a work set in 1943 Hungary. The country is on the verge of war as the Nazis approach the borders, leaving everyone in a state of anxiety.

Eva Cesar is a young willful woman who has arrived in Sopron, a very idyllic town, where she intends to spend some time on the family estate of her aristocratic family for the last time as a single woman.
All she wants is to be free from her domineering father, and she cannot help but look forward to her upcoming marriage to a dedicated and kind doctor who works for the Red Cross.

However, her life changes when she meets a passionate and charming Romani artist and fiddler named Aleandro. With profound class differences and time against them, Aleandro and Eva fall in love only to be torn apart by the brutality of hatred.
As they find themselves in the tides of war, they make an attempt at pausing their romance but the haunting memory of the time they had spent together will lead them to decisions that will reverberate through the generations.
From the tension of the Hungarian uprising of 1956 to World War II and its horrors, it is a sweeping tale about the blurry lines between obsession and sacrifice, the toll of secrets, and human endurance.