"Engrossing historical fictionā¦A touching, thrilling heartbreak for any reader." āUSA Today
This stunning debut novel of epic historical fiction, set in the fascinating world of Cold War Soviet ballet, follows the fates of twin sisters whose bond is competitive, complicated, but never broken.
Maya and Natasha are twin sisters born in the midst of the Siege of Leningrad in 1941 and immediately abandoned by their mother, a prima ballerina at the Kirov Ballet who would rather die than not dance. Taken in by their mother's best friend at the Kirov, the girls are raised to be dancers themselves. The Vaganova Ballet Academyāand the totalitarian Soviet regimeāis the only world they know.
In 1958, now seniors at the Vaganova at the height of the Cold War, all Maya and Natasha and their classmates want is to dance with the Kirov, and to join the company on its tour to America next year. But a new law from the Kremlin upends Maya and Natasha's lives: due to fears of defection, family members may no longer travel abroad together. The Kirov can only accept one of them.
Maya, long accustomed to living in her sister's shadow, accepts her bitter fate, until a new dance partner inspires her to dream bigger and practice harder. For the first timeāand at the cruelest possible momentāthe intense sibling rivalry means the sisters are equally matched. And then one sister betrays the other, altering their lives forever and splitting them in two, though neither will stray far from the other's orbit.
As one of the twins pursues her ballet career and experiences a world outside Russia for the first time, the other is cast in an epic film adaptation ofĀ War and Peace, produced and financed by the Soviet State. As the Cold War heats up, this unforgettable sister story sees Maya and Natasha confront their loyalties: to East versus West; to the government that saved them versus their dreams of freedom; and, always, to each other.