Paris, July 1942: Before ten year-old Sarah is arrested in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, she locks her younger brother in a cupboard, thinking she will be back quickly.

Paris, May 2002: Journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article for the Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary and stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

A magnificent and haunting novel, Sarah’s Key—once read—is impossible to forget. Tatiana de Rosnay offers up a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of WWII France and reveals the taboos and silence that surround the painful events of the V’el D’hiv—a historical tragedy of which few people today are aware. This portrait is interwoven with the modern-day story of Julia Jarmond—an American journalist in Paris—whose struggles with her marriage and relationships with her teenage daughter and exacting French in-laws resonate with readers everywhere.