Language: G; Mature Content: PG; Violence: PG (referred but not described)
BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS - ADVISABLE
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Matthew frets as a New Jersey shut-in during the Covid pandemic. His mother assigns him to help his 100-year-old great- grandmother, GG, clean out her memory boxes in order to release pent up energy. As photos and writings emerge, Matthew discovers a history never shared until now. The stories of Helen and Mila, long distant cousins become interwoven as GG slowly, painfully shares her life history during the Holodomor (Stalin forced famine in Ukraine). Helen, who has immigrated with her family to Brooklyn, secretly sends a gold necklace to help her starving cousin, Nadia. Nadia uses the money to search for family help. She finds Mila, another cousin, and her father in Kiev. But Mila’s father refuses to help her. Consequently, Mila secretly conceals Nadia at the home of her piano teacher. What happens after this becomes the secret of a lifetime.
Marsh takes the history she has learned about her own grandmother and creates an intriguing tale of courage, hope, love, betrayal, and survival. The plot moves swiftly as the story shifts from Matthew to Helen to Mila with cliffhangers at every turn. Marsh’s final reveal reminds all of the lengths humans go to for survival. March aptly wrote of this book “the anguish and worry at the heart of this work of historical fiction feels all too current and real”.
MOMMAC
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