Für Elise

<p><strong>He waited half his life for a homecoming only to discover his home no longer existed.</strong></p><p>. . . But perhaps he can create a new one.</p><p></p><p>In 1956 more than a decade after the end of World War II Hans Becker is finally released from a Soviet POW camp and returns to Germany. The reunion is disheartening-his beloved Dresden is largely blackened rubble and his feelings of disorientation and melancholy hinder his attempt to revive the life-and love-he left behind.</p><p></p><p>Elise the once delicate teenager whose memory Hans carried in his heart has through unspeakable trauma transformed into a strong independent woman skeptical of love. Yet just as she and Hans can spot traces of splendor in the ruins and oppression of Iron Curtain-era Dresden so they each can see flashes of what attracted them to their long-ago sweetheart. But they-and their world-have changed so much. Are they willing to risk everything to seek a new beginning?</p>