Vienna, 1954
After losing everyone she loves in the final days of World War II, Ingrid Bauer agrees to a hasty marriage with a gentle Soviet embassy worker and follows him home to Moscow. But nothing deep within the Soviet Union’s totalitarian regime is what it seems, including her new husband, whom Ingrid suspects works for the KGB. Upon her daughter’s birth, Ingrid risks everything and reaches out in hope to the one country she understands and trusts—Britain, the country of her mother’s birth—and starts passing along intelligence to MI6, navigating a world of secrets and lies, light and shadow.
Washington, DC, 1980
Part of the Foreign Studies Initiative, Anya Kadinova finishes her degree at Georgetown University and boards her flight home to Moscow, leaving behind the man she loves and a country she’s grown to respect. Though raised by dedicated and loyal Soviet parents, Anya soon questions an increasingly oppressive and paranoid Soviet regime at the height of the Cold War. When the KGB murders her best friend, Anya picks sides and contacts the CIA. Working in a military research lab, Anya passes along Soviet military plans and schematics in an effort to end the 1980s arms race. --bn.com
*** I was very fortunate to receive a complimentary copy of this book and all opinions in this review are completely my own. ***
The only way to start my review is to say, "WOW!" For so much of this book, I felt right there in the scenes. Katherine does a phenomenal job of describing the scene and giving you details that make you feel you're right there- in the middle of everything with the characters. The details she included with the undercover work and spy maneuvers just made the story leap off the pages!! I felt the suspense the characters felt and the tension, too. This story was incredible. Her research was impeccable and brought the story she created to life.
Ingrid is a dynamic character. Her story engrossed me from the very beginning. Her storyline started off with secrets and pretty much stayed that way throughout the whole book. In fact, she doesn't understand for years why her father is dragged from their family home and beaten. She learns later her mother was pushed down stairs and died in the same attack. She had no idea the truth of what her parents were doing, nor who they were. Once the truth is revealed to her, her life is forever changed.
Her parents' legacy comes into play once Ingrid is married and about to have her daughter. A hasty marriage doesn't live out as she thought it would and she decides she wants better for her daughter. This involves secrets, spying, sharing political information against the Soviet Union. The very government her husband is devoted to. Years of dinner parties and being the perfect hostess give her access to conversations she would later relay to the British. Over the years, she becomes legendary. So much so, in fact, that only people know who she is.
Anya is given the rare opportunity to leave Moscow and study in the U.S. for a few years. There, she's exposed to an entirely different way of life. One that has hope, options, freedom. She can't unknow what she now knows once she comes back to Moscow. Suddenly, the differences between the U.S. and Russia are all she sees. Anya makes a firm choice of where her loyalty lies when she's informed the Dmitri is dead. While everyone says he was mugged and killed, Anya fears something is off. Shortly after, she notifies a man she met through a college professor in the U.S. and begins to spy for them.
This story was so action packed. No chapter was without a purpose in driving the story along. My only complaint was that it felt the first half of the book unfolded in a slow pace. Lots was happening, but it felt like it was taking awhile to get it going. For example, Ingrid doesn't even get married until 80+ pages in. Based on the book summary, that was what catapults her into spying, so I expected it to happen sooner than it did. Dmitri's death (the catapult for Anya's spying) doesn't happen until pages 139. I wasn't expecting these key events to happen so late in the story.
However, once the ball got rolling you were rolling. You were glued. You wanted to see how each operation would go. Would Anya get caught? Would Ingrid? Seeing everything come to a head and unfold from there was intense and I couldn't wait to see how the book would end.
Thank you, Katherine Reay, for another amazing book. You captivated me with the story you wrote. I was torn between wanting to know what would happen next to not wanting the story to end.
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