Books Set in Eastern Europe & Russia

Book Summary

This novel transports you to the 1992 Siege of Sarajevo as three people try to survive in a city rife with desperation. One sorrowing cellist continues to play, undaunted by all around him.

His mission started when a shell landed on a bread line, killing twenty-two as a cellist watched from his window. He vowed to play Albinoni’s Adagio once a day for twenty-two days, for each of the twenty-two victims.

The book is told through the stories of three characters trying to survive a normal day during the Siege. Kenan and Dragan are strangers, but each faces paralyzing fear as they try to access food or water. “Arrow” is a female sniper, tasked with protecting the cellist as he plays his memorials. Through their day, each character must make hard choices about prioritizing themselves or helping others.

Book Summary

When they were children, Saba and his brother fled the conflict in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. They are still struggling to make peace with what their mother sacrificed for them by remaining in the war zone so that they could escape with their father. Years later, the brothers are young adults when their father returns to the destruction of their beautiful homeland, and then disappears. Saba’s older brother soon follows in search of their dad, only to disappear as well.

Now alone in the world, Saba sets off for his homeland determined to follow a trail of clues to find his family. Joined by new friends and old ghosts, Saba must battle dangers he thought he’d left behind.

Book Summary

Maria, a chef, runs a cooking school in her hometown of Petalidi, Greece. She also grows her own food and keeps bees. It’s the perfect escape from her past. Kayla, an English food journalist headed to Petalidi for work, has recently discovered that her whole life has been based on a lie. Alessandra, a Roman jewelry maker, just received her own terrible news.

These three women are very different, but an unlikely friendship blooms at the house in a picturesque olive grove. Will the new bonds and delicious flavors of Greece help them come to terms with their situations outside the grove?

Book Summary

In 1929, sixteen-year-old Katya had a good life and was in love with the boy next door. The first time Stalin’s men came to her village, it was just a few men with a low-pressure offer to join a farming collective.

But then neighbors disappear, those who speak out are never seen again, and every new day is uncertain. Resistance has a price, and soon the idea of mere survival feels like a dream.

Seventy years later, a young widow discovers a journal that holds long-buried secrets of her family history.

Book Summary

When Maya and Natasha are born as twins, it’s the middle of the Siege of Leningrad. Their mother is a prima ballerina at the Kirov Ballet who immediately abandons them to return to her true love, dance. They are raised by their mother’s best friend to be dancers themselves.

By 1958, it was the height of the Cold War, and both girls were striving to join Kirov and its upcoming American tour. However, the Kremlin had implemented a law that family members may not travel abroad together, so Kirov could only accept one of them.

When one sister betrays the other, their lives are altered forever. One leaves Russia for the first time, and the other is cast in an epic film adaptation of War and Peace, produced and financed by the Soviet State. The sisters must each confront their loyalties to the government vs. their love of freedom and, most importantly, their loyalty to each other.

Book Summary

Meta Taverner is a young musicologist whose concert piano career was cut short by an injury. Irena, a Czech immigrant, has given her what seems to be an authentic 18th-century original sonata manuscript of a hauntingly beautiful composition. However, there is no indication of the composer.

Irena asked Meta to locate the manuscript’s owner, Otylie, whom she hasn’t heard from since WW2. Meta travels to Prague in an attempt to uncover the sonata’s history, but once she arrives, it’s clear she’s not the only one trying to uncover the music’s secrets.

Book Summary

Wealthy aristocrat Eva is engaged to a doctor and spending her last summer as a single woman at her family’s estate in Sopron. However, she meets a Romani fiddler and artist, Aleandrao, and they quickly fall in love despite their differences in class, which makes them look incompatible to outsiders.

The outbreak of war separates Eva and Aleandro, but their chance meeting that summer leads to decisions that change their individual futures.

Book Summary

Croatia is a lovely place to vacation with its sunshine, pebbly beaches, and crystal-clear water. But Kate isn’t there for that – she’s hoping to disappear. Her life has recently fallen apart in a spectacular and public manner, and she’s looking forward to spending time on the island of Hvar where no one recognizes her.

She never expects to find a connection with another lonely soul there. Right away, she recognizes that Alex is different from any other man she’s met. Their connection is undeniable, and she finds it easy to open up to him. But she’s not the only one in Hvar hiding secrets, and it’s only a matter of time before the truth catches up with them.

Book Summary

This moving memoir intertwines the author’s Ukrainian family’s history with their homeland’s history. When the Russo-Ukrainian War began in 2014, Victoria Belim watched the news as the landmarks of her family’s personal geography were plunged into chaos and destruction.

From her hometown of Kyiv to Crimea, where she was once sent to school to escape the radiation from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. And from Kharkiv, where her grandmother studied economics and found love to Kharkv Donetsk, where her father once worked. All of these places that held special memories for her family became battlegrounds.

She lived in Belgium at the time but felt compelled to return to the country she once called home. She wanted to visit her grandmother and cousin, unravel a generations-old family mystery, and better understand her homeland’s tragic history and present.

Book Summary

In Warsaw, Zofia depends on books and her best friend, Janina, to endure the horrors of the Nazi occupation of Poland. However, as bombing increases, even books are endangered. Zofia begins hiding books away, and even starts an underground book club. When Janina is forced into a newly established ghetto, she still doesn’t give up her love of reading.

However, as the war continues, Zofia and Janina’s activities put them at risk. Can they save both Janina and the literature that has brought them so much comfort?

Book Summary

In 1937, Andras, a young Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, departs Budapest. He was bound for Paris with a scholarship, one suitcase, and a mysterious letter he promised to deliver. Soon, he will find himself falling deeply in love with Klara, the letter’s recipient. But Klara has doubts, and she isn’t very open about her past.

As the Third Reich rises to power, Andres and Klara leave Paris and seek safety back home in Hungary. Eventually, Andras will discover a secret that will alter the course of his life and his family’s history. 

This book will take you from the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris to the small Hungarian town of Konyár, and from the Carpathian Mountains to the Hungarian labor camps.

Book Summary

In 1941, Romania was newly allied with the German army, and the Jewish population was in grave danger of persecution. One freezing night, a young Jewish girl’s parents are forced to leave her behind, and she is found on the steps of an apartment building in Bucharest.

The girl is placed in an orphanage and eventually adopted by a wealthy couple who rename her Natalia. She comes of age in Romania under Soviet occupation, where life behind the Iron Curtain feels bleak and hopeless.

When Natalia is in her early twenties and working at a warehouse packing fruit, she is reunited with Victor, who she had a secret crush on in her younger years. He is now an important official in the Communist regime, and the two are fatefully drawn into a passionate affair despite the obstacles swirling around them and Victor’s dark secrets. When Natalia is suddenly offered a one-time chance at freedom, Victor is determined to help her escape, even if it means losing her. She must make an agonizing decision: remain in Bucharest with her beloved adoptive parents and the man she has come to love, or seize the chance to live life on her own terms.

Book Summary

Hana is a middle-aged librarian who just wants to be left alone. But then a detective arrives to share the terrible news that her best friend has been murdered. She knows that the past she shared with her friend has caught up to them.

Thirty years earlier, Hana’s name was Nura. She was a normal teen in the mountains of Bosnia until Serbian soldiers slaughtered her entire family in front of her. The horrific event led her to join a militia, where she rose through the ranks to become a legend. Eventually, she fled to the US with a bounty on her head.

Now, she has custody of her friend’s grandson. To protect the child, she must find the killer before the past finds them.

Book Summary

This suspenseful novel will take you through different phases of Bulgarian history. Twenty-six-year-old American Alexandra travels to the beautiful city of Sofia, hoping the change of scenery will help her deal with the loss of her brother. After arriving and helping an elderly couple into a taxi, she realizes that she still has one of their bags.

When she discovers that the bag holds a box of ashes, she’s determined to find the couple. Her search encompasses experiences that teach her about the history and culture of Bulgaria, which is a more dangerous investigation than she expected.

Book Summary

This historical fiction novel is based on the true story of Lyudmila (Mila) Pavlichenko, a Ukrainian sniper who fought against the Nazis during WWII. The novel follows Mila’s journey from a young woman studying history in Kyiv to a decorated war hero known as “Lady Death.”

In the late 1930s, Mila was a 24-year-old student and library worker living in Kyiv. She is intelligent, independent, and fiercely patriotic. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, she joined the Red Army. Mila quickly proves to be a natural sniper.

This novel is told in two timelines – the first being Mila’s time on the battlefield. The second timeline follows Mila’s press tour in Washington, DC.

When news of her 300th kill makes her a national hero, she is sent to the United States on a 1942 goodwill tour. In the US, she pleads for the US to send weapons and troops to Europe to help stop the Germans. She also forms an unexpected friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Throughout the novel, in addition to Mila’s perspective, we also see short notes from Eleanor Roosevelt and chapters from the point of view of an unnamed marksman who has been tasked with assassinating Franklin Roosevelt and framing Mila for the murder.

Book Summary

This dual-timeline historical fiction novel is told from the alternating points of view of two female spies.

Ingrid Bauer lost her entire family in World War II. A decade later, she agrees to a hasty marriage to a Soviet embassy worker and moves with him to Moscow in the 1950s. Despite his gentle demeanor, Ingrid comes to suspect that her new husband, in fact, works for the KGB. After her daughter is born, Ingrid risks everything when she begins passing along intelligence to Britain, her mother’s home country.

In 1980, Anya Kadinova was set to return to Moscow after finishing her degree at Georgetown University. Despite being raised by loyal Soviet parents, Anya has gained much respect for the US after taking part in the Foreign Studies Initiative. Upon returning home at the height of the Cold War, she witnesses the increasingly oppressive Soviet regime. After the KGB murders her best friend, Anya contacts the CIA and begins passing along intelligence that she gains from working in a military research lab.

As the novel progresses, Ingrid’s storyline catches up to Anya’s where an unprecedented act of treachery will threaten all undercover agents in the Soviet Union.

Book Summary

In 1991, 10-year-old Ana had no idea that Yugoslavia was about to erupt into chaos, eventually leading her home region of Croatia to become its own country. 

Ana’s daily life goes from carefree days playing in the streets to learning about snipers and child soldiers. This new and enduring conflict transforms her coming-of-age period. Eventually, she makes a daring escape to America. 

After a while, Ana hides her tragic past from others and even from herself. However, while in college, she decides to return alone to Croatia to rediscover her homeland.

Book Summary

In September of 1896, Betsy is an aspiring archaeologist. The Smith College graduate travels to Athens in hopes of breaking into the male-dominated field of excavation. When war breaks out between Greece and Turkey, however, Betsy enters the conflict as a nurse. This decision causes a painful rift with her oldest friend, Ava.

Two years later, Betsy has sworn off war nursing. But when she receives word that Ava is heading to Cuba to help Clara Barton and the Red Cross to care for the wounded in the Spanish-American War, Betsy is determined to stop Ava, and the only way she can do it is by taking Ava’s place. She follows Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders straight to the heart of the battle.

Book Summary

Inspired by the true story of the Cambridge Five, Woman in Moscow takes you into the height of the Cold War in 1952. Four years earlier, Iris and her family disappeared from their London home, captivating the world. Her husband is an American diplomat, and the strange disappearance captured the world’s attention.

Finally, in 1952, her twin sister Ruth is shocked to get a message from Iris. Within days, there’s a plan in place for Ruth to go to Moscow posing as the wife of a counterintelligence agent. Will the plan work to free the family?

Book Summary

This epic historical fiction novel captures the energy and life of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Dimitri is born to one of the wealthiest families in the city, but after a great fire sweeps through Thessaloniki in 1917, destroying the family’s villa, they are forced to relocate to a poorer section of the city – one where Christians, Jews, and Muslims have been living side by side in harmony.

As a young girl, Katerina’s family is evacuated from their home in Turkey, and she becomes separated from her mother and sister. While her family ends up in Athens, she finds herself in Thessaloniki. Here, she becomes a seamstress creating beautiful gowns for the wealthy women of Thessaloniki.

The lives of Dimitri and Katerina become intertwined, and their love story endures even as their beloved city is ruined by earthquakes, fires, and wartime and time again. This is a heartwarming love story, but it also provides excellent insight into the troubled history of this region.

Book Summary

This novel is set in Norilsk, the northernmost city of Siberia, where the brutal weather mirrors the sacrifices of young Russian gymnasts competing for their country. When Anya was 8, she was selected for the famed USSR gymnastics program. Her father is thrilled, but she can’t share the news with her mother, who disappeared years earlier.

Anya’s only confidant is her neighbor, Vera, an older woman who survived unspeakable horrors during her ten years in a Gulag camp. While Anya doesn’t know this, Vera was also her mom’s confidant and may be able to help solve the mystery of her disappearance.

Book Summary

On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded in the early morning hours, triggering one of the twentieth century’s most significant disasters. In addition to causing widespread radiation poisoning, Chernobyl was also a key event in the destruction of the Soviet Union and the United States’ victory in the Cold War.

Higginbotham provides a robust investigation into Chernobyl by drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted over more than ten years, as well as letters, unpublished memoirs, and documents from recently declassified archives. You’ll learn how propaganda, secrecy, and myth have obscured the true story of one of history’s worst nuclear disasters.

Book Summary

This fascinating historical fiction takes a look at Marie Curie’s real path in life alongside an alternate timeline that explores how science could have changed for all of us if she made one different choice.

In 1891, Marie was engaged to a promising mathematician, but his mother insisted that Marie was too poor for him to wed. After he broke her heart, Marie left Poland to attend the Sorbonne to study chemistry and physics. She eventually went on to be the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.

But what if she had stayed in Russian Poland where education for women was restricted, instead of studying science in Paris and meeting Pierre Curie? Through the parallel stories, we see what could have happened if a great scientific mind was denied opportunity and access to education.

Book Summary

Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand luxury hotel across the street from the Kremlin.

Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat, Rostov has never worked a day in his life and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold outside the hotel’s doors.

Book Summary

In 1944, Ukrainians faced invaders on multiple fronts as Hilter and Stalin had both pushed into their country. The Last Green Valley tells the story of one family with a common dilemma in their region. The Martel’s had a strong German heritage, but their families had been farming in Ukraine for more than a century.

Like many others, they had a choice. Do they trust that their German blood will protect them and go with the German troops despite not agreeing with the Third Reich agenda? Or stay and risk being sent to Siberian work camps by Russia?

Book Summary

When the author was ten years old, his homeland of Poland was invaded, and his family was forced to move to a Kraków ghetto. Daily life required perseverance for survival in unbelievably cruel conditions. Eventually, his life was saved by Oskar Schindler’s incredibly generous and brave actions.

Book Summary

This real-life political thriller tells the true story of American financier Bill Browder, a Stanford Business School graduate who began his career as a hedge fund investor in the 1990s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, his career led him to Moscow, where he co-founded Hermitage Capital Management and became the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia.

A decade later, when Browder exposed the corrupt Russian oligarchs who were robbing the companies he was investing in, Vladimir Putin had him expelled from Russia. All the while, his employees in Russia lived in fear, and his attorney, Sergei Magnitsky, was ultimately imprisoned in Moscow, where he died.

Book Summary

Sisters Meredith and Nina have little in common other than their love for their dear father. They’ve spent most of their life feeling like they didn’t really know their mother, but when their father falls ill, his final wish is for his daughters to get to know their mother better. In their younger years, Anya sometimes tells the girls a Russian fairy tale, and their father makes her promise that she will tell the story one last time – all the way to the end.

The story alternates between past and present as Meredith and Nina hear the fairy tale and learn the harrowing story of the mother’s life five decades earlier in war-torn Leningrad, Russia. They will ultimately learn something so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.

Book Summary

Charles is retired from the CIA, but with a new baby on the way, he finds himself desperate for money. So when his former bureau chief shows up with a risky new assignment that would take him undercover in Moscow, he agrees to the mission because he can’t afford not to.

He is charged with locating a Russian agent who is believed to be taking out members of a US spy cell, but when he identifies the agent, he discovers she’s not who he thought. Charles soon finds himself abandoned by the agency he serves and fighting to survive a deadly game of cat and mouse.