![]() ![]() Some story lines strain credibility (coincidences and melodramatic cliffhangers abound) or are questionable (the prurient element involved with Varinka’s protector/abuser falls flat). ![]() Interweaving three story lines (Varinka ends up working for the Streshnayva household) where all three are emotionally and physically put to the test, the author depicts Eliza’s upper-class life in America and how, despite personal loss, she throws herself into helping Russian emigres Sofya’s tragic circumstances when a rowdy, dangerous mob takes over the family’s country home and Varinka’s struggles as a peasant girl at the mercy of a man who is both abusive and protective toward her. The author follows the trajectory of their lives from 1914 through WWI and then the Russian Revolution and its aftermath with page-tuning brio. ![]() Just as the author focused on three strong women surviving a war in her previous novel, she does the same here: in addition to Eliza, there is her aristocrat friend Sofya Streshnayva (cousin to the tsar) and a Russian peasant girl, Varinka. Here the story focuses on her mother, Eliza, who set an example for her daughter by being a champion for Russian nobility brutalized during WWI. ![]() How Caroline Ferriday, the real-life character featured in Kelly’s Lilac Girls, was inspired to become an advocate for Polish refugees who survived WWII comes to light in this lively, well-researched prequel in which she appears as a child. ![]()
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