What It Is About - FIVE Things You Need to Know:
1. *Fifteen year old Ilya is a Russian exchange student that has just arrived in Louisiana.
2. *He joins a wonderful family with three daughters and Ilya "bonds" with their oldest daughter Sadie.
3. *Ilya can't quite enjoy his new adventure as he is worried about his older brother Vladimir. Vladimir went down a difficult path and found himself arrested for the murder of three young women.
4. *Even though Ilya knows his brother was surrounded by trouble back in Russia, he knows he is not responsible for the murders.
5. Ilya and Sadie team up to find out what really happened back in Russia and try to "free" Vladimir from the "evil" he is living.
What I Thought Of It - Five Observations/Reflections:
1. *The writing in this novel was descriptive, exquisite, and thought provoking.
2. *I was drawn into Ilya's world as soon as I began reading. I could picture how lost he must have felt when he first arrived in the United States.
3. *The author did a tremendous job of describing life in Russia and putting the reader right into that world.
4. *The format of the storytelling went back and forth between Russia and the United States along with going back and forth between time frames.
5. *Not only was this a mystery story that centered around Vladimir, but it was a relationship story between family, strangers, and those that are brought into our lives to help make sense of it.
Who Should Read It: This is definitely a novel for the adult reader that enjoys well-written fiction. Even though there is a great mystery at the center of the story; it is also a character study of a variety of characters that come from completely different worlds. Happy Reading!
Rating: 4 STARS out of 5 Stars!
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