February 4–11, 1945. Yalta, a resort town on the Crimean Peninsula, Soviet Union. The Big Three are posing for a camera. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. All smiling. Stalin, his head is half a turn away from the other two. A shrewd smirk is hiding behind his walrus mustache. He seems to be pleased. Why wouldn’t he be? The Big Three signed the agreement that will shape the fate of Europe and . . .
In 1941, Anna is sixteen, almost an adult yet still a child, craving independence and keen to become an operetta actress. Her rosy aspirations are disrupted by the war. When Krasnodar is taken by the Wehrmacht, she is one of the populace who are ordered to repair roads for the occupants’ trucks and cars and, in fall, to toil in the fields for the sake of sending the harvest to the enemy’s land. A dire event coerces her to go to Germany where she is auctioned as a slave worker.
Born in Berlin into an émigré Cossack family, young Zakhary is more interested in books and archeology than in the war that is raging through Europe, even less in the cause of his parents and their friends, which is to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union and revert to Imperial Russia. He just doesn’t want to be a part of it. That is, until he finds himself among the Cossacks fighting alongside the Germans against the Allies.
In Italy, he meets Marishka, a young woman of Cossack heritage who fled the Soviet Union with other anti-Soviet Cossacks and departing German troops under the push of the Red Army. They fall in love and marry. And then, on June 1, 1945, Lienz happened.
After the war, a ghastly fate propels each of them to the merciless land where skies are leaden gray, frosts plunge below -60°C in winter, and the woods are impenetrable and so vast, there is no escape from there.
Anna and Zakhary carry with them their personal wounds, at the same time haunted by unbearable guilt, which they can’t undo or fix. In 1955, fate brings them together on an isolated peninsula of the Ob River, connected to one another in inextricably entangled ways they do not yet realize. More than a decade later, can they bury the cruel past and build a future for themselves in the country without Stalin but sealed behind the Iron Curtain?
This is their story, relived in one day.
Short-listed in the 2023 Hemingway Book Awards novel competition for 20th Century Wartime Fiction. A division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
Reader's Favorite Medal - 5 Stars
The Wishing Shelf Book Award 2023 – Finalist
Five stars and the "Highly Recommended" award of excellence from The Historical Fiction Company
2025 Author Shout Reader Ready Award Top Pick
“Exceptional and timely story… this story is the stuff of great Russian literature.”—Luv2read
“The history lessons she gives us are tremendous, she doesn’t just end there though, she gets inside the heart and soul of her characters and we know them and feel them and walk away richer from connecting with them…Thank you Marina, for another wonderful book that opens our eyes to the truth and helps us to have greater compassion for others.
I marvel at your writing skills. Each book you’ve written comes to life and touches me deeply.”—pamarella
“Some stories, such as this, need to be told. We need to know what our species is capable of in the hope that one day we will learn a better way. This is a very poignant and well told story. Much appreciated.”—yetismith
“The stories of WWII are countless, but some of them were purposely silenced. This masterful piece of writing by Marina Osipova is one of the few who has brought to the surface an episode of WWII that some would gladly keep hidden…The manner of telling this heartbreaking narrative over 24 hours is a masterpiece of literary prose. It's an emotional roller coaster touching every facet of the human condition.”—Induna
“This is a story which is hard to erase from one's mind because it reminds us of the sheer savagery and barbarity of war and oppressive ideology which spurred a Nazi regime into existence and a Russian state of oppression. Read it - it is an inspiring story about the irrepressible human soul.”— Réal Laplaine
“These are things we don't learn in history classes.”—R. Janet Walraven
“This is a book that should be read by everyone. There is so much history of the mistreatment of people who were in the wrong place and wrong time that is not even mentioned in History Books… It was a fantastic read. Thanks Marina.”— Harry Clifford
“…a haunting work of historical fiction…an emotional saga of love and the triumph of the human spirit in the face of odds so overwhelming that many prisoners in Siberia simply gave up living…Thanks to this instant classic we have now learned about them and are a better people for it.”—Tom Price
“This book should be one of the required high school books in my opinion.”—Amazon Customer
“An exceptional book…Marina Osipova has once again brought to life little-known aspects of WWII Soviet history in an emotionally moving and human story that takes us on a long and tragic journey from Nazi-occupied Austria to the gulags of Siberia. Her research is impeccable and I always learn something new, which is what I particularly enjoy in a WWII book.”—Kathryn Gauci
“Deserves 10 stars!! Incredible book! … I literally could not put this book down. Marina Osipova has done it again!”—Pam
