Inspired by her own family's experiences in Ukraine before, during and after World War II, the author reimagines their story, following the life and experiences of 16-year-old Katya, beginning in 1929 Kyiv and then, seventy years later, a young widow uncovers long-hidden family secrets about their past.

"The young artist and writer Yevgenia Belorusets was in her hometown of Kyiv when Putin's "special military operation" against Ukraine began on the morning of February 24, 2022. With the shelling of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, and Kherson, the war with Russia had clearly, irreversibly begun: "I thought, this has been allowed to happen, it is a crime against everything human, against a great common space where we live and hope for a future." With power...

Aspiring writer Viktor Zolotaryov leads a down-and-out life in poverty-and-violence-wracked Kiev - he's out of work and his only friend is a penguin, Misha, that he rescued when the local zoo could no longer feed its animals. But Viktor doesn't know how to keep himself alive, let alone an animal so out of its element. Even more nerve-wracking: a local mobster has taken a shine to Misha and wants to keep borrowing him for events, like mafioso funerals....

"Larissa is a stubborn, brutally honest woman in her eighties, tired of her home in Kiev, Ukraine, tired of everything in life, really, except for her beloved granddaughter, Natasha. Natasha is tired as well, but that's because she has just had a baby, and she's struggling to balance her roles as a new mother, a wife, an actress (or she used to be, anyway), and a host to her husband's greasy-haired, useless best friend, Stas, who has been staying...