Lana Kortchik

Usually I like historical fiction especially when it involves women's stories. However, this book didn't quite work for me. There were several passages that I thought just couldn't be right. Plus, the timing of key events always seemed to occur with just minutes from a more positive outcome.

Natasha is one year older than her sister Lisa but Lisa seems more daring. They both live with their parents, grandparents and a younger brother in a large apartment in Kiev, Ukraine. Lisa is engaged to be married to her long time boyfriend, Alexei, and the book opens with the sisters and Alexei coming back from an appointment with the person making the wedding dress. Kiev is expecting the Germans to arrive any minute and everyone is worried. Suddenly the tanks and trucks are there and the Germans have taken over management of the city. Food is in short supply and lines form at any shop that might have something to sell. Radios have to be turned in by any Russian ethnics so Natasha and her grandmother set out to deliver theirs.On their way home they are stopped by a German officer in a deserted park. The German makes an advance on Natasha and her grandmother attacks him. In response the officer fires his gun at the older woman and then holds his gun on Natasha.She is convinced he is going to kill both of them but, instead, the officer is killed by a soldier who is with the German forces but is Hungarian. Mark helps Natasha get her grandmother home and leaves them outside their apartment building. No one saw the encounter and so when the Germans look for people to prosecute for the officer's killing they can't find anyone. They then take young men at random and hang them in the same park where the killings take place. Unfortunately, one of the young men they take is Alexei. Lisa is hearbroken and angry at Natasha for not turning Mark in. But Mark and Natasha have fallen in love and spend any moment they can steal to be together. Meanwhile, Natasha's best friend who is Jewish was rounded up with all the other Jews in the city and taken to Baba Yar where they were executed en masse. The story continues with more deaths and increasing restrictions and families being torn apart. Then, at the end, after the Germans are forced to retreat by the Red Army, miraculous events reunite loved ones.

Not a terrible book but not one I would really recommend. It's too bad because there aren't a lot of books about the effects of the war in Ukraine.… (mehr)

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The sprawling Kazan Cathedral, the symbol of Russia’s victory over Napoleon, of freedom and sacrifice, of bravery and spirit, sported a red revolutionary flag.

Count Dmitry Orlov is throwing his Countess Sophia Orlova a lavish twenty-third birthday party but it's March of 1917 in Petrograd and the only people who show up are the Bolsheviks. Arrogance kept Dmitry from leaving the city when Sophia wanted to leave with their friends and now their home is being ransacked and the men surrounding them are calling for their blood. Before Sophia is struck down, a man enters and with his authority he saves them. Nikolai, Dmitry's younger banished brother because of his ideals, is a Bolshevik and manages to keep them alive in the home that isn't their own anymore. However, revolutions are never easy and Russia is not done with her turmoil, as the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and Imperial Army all vie for power, Sophia, Dmitry, and Nikolai are all tossed around by the winds of fate and love.

Her crime was having everything while they had nothing, having been born into luxury while their whole lives they had struggled to put bread on the table.

Told from Sophia's point-of-view, this hit some of the big moments and followed along the broad strokes of the revolution during 1917-18. Sophia was younger and previously very privileged, as the story goes on, reader's get to know Sophia and see that ennui was starting to creep into her life and she wanted to care more about things other than balls and jewels. She had worked as a nurse and helped Russian soldiers coming home injured from World War I, so she has some taste of the outside world. It seemed pretty instant her attraction to Nikolai (there are a lot of “twinkling” eyes in this) and what pulls her to him is his caring and passion for something that seems big and important. Dmitry seems to only care about his cigars and keeping up appearances, so when Nikolai talks about his vision for the new Russia, he seems more interesting and her attraction to her brother-in-law grows.

‘Tsar Nicholas abdicated in favour of his brother, who refused the throne and surrendered the power to the Provisional Government. As of today, there is a new order in Russia.’

The danger of the revolution and the forbidden love developing sets the story up for some great emotional dramatics but Nikolai never developed beyond a good-looking guy who writes speeches and while the historical events and people are mentioned and Sophia has to run and sometimes interacts with them, I never completely felt the depth of it all. The story and characters read like New Adult historical fiction to me, not quite delivering the emotional depth for me. Sophia likes that Nikolai cares about something important but it's more from a fangirl pov, she doesn't necessarily agree, disagree, or thinking deeply about it all and Nikolai seems to just travel around saving her at moments and write speeches; we never see what he is doing for the Bolsheviks. The romance between the two was pretty weak for me.

The newly established regime saw danger everywhere. And it endeavoured to eliminate this danger at all cost.

The story did have Sophia traveling from Petrograd, to Kislovodsk, and then to Tambievskii in the mountains to be with the Cossacks and we get a glimpse of Andrei Shkuro. With the war, we of course get the drama of her trying to hide her feelings for Nikolai from Dmitry and her bestfriend Regina. Regina develops a liking for Nikolai too and is convinced he is going to ask her to marry him. For a long time, the reader isn't sure if Regina is making something up in her own mind or if Sophia's feelings are one-sided. It's around the half-way point that Nikolai makes his feelings known but then he's captured as the Mensheviks are taking power and his fate becomes unknown to Sophia for a while.

He was her husband’s brother.

The second half has things deteriorating between Sophia and Dmitry and it becomes harder for her to hide her feelings for Nikolai. The last twenty percent hurried along with betrayals, seemingly betrayals, and Sophia finally making a choice. The chaotic and dangerous atmosphere of Russia at this time was felt, all the running from city to city, Nikolai getting arrested and then Dmitry and Sophia getting arrested, the changing regimes in power but the romance between Sophia and Nikolai felt like teenagers in the throes of hormonal first love, which didn't really fit with the real life dangerous times. The epilogue also didn't fit for me as it was from Dmitry's point-of-view and while it gave an update on how things worked out for Sophia, the tone of it didn't work as the story had previously been all from Sophia. This had some interesting moments but the overall mood felt more like, easier, on the surface New Adult historical fiction.… (mehr)

Oh my gosh, I was literally CRYING through the last 20 pages of this book! The ending simply pulled out all the stops, leaving me so bittersweetly content about finishing this novel. It’s funny too, because up until the end, the book had been tracking at a 3-star for me as “liked it”, but didn’t quite pop over to 4-star “really liked it”. I’ll do my fellow readers the courtesy of not ruining the ending by mentioning just why I cried through the end, but I will say that the conclusion of “Sisters of War” added that something extra I was looking for and is definitely worth adding an extra star.

*A big thank you to Lana Kortchik, HarperCollins Publishers/HQ Digital, and NetGalley for providing a free Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for this honest review.*

“Sisters of War” is a good, solid tale that I enjoyed. The characters feel very real and believable – in fact there is one in particular for whom I’m still feeling badly, even now – several hours after finishing the novel. The setting for this book was interesting as well. The majority of WWII novels I’ve come across take place in England or France or sometimes the U.S. This one takes place in Kiev, Ukraine, and is written by an author who actually grew up in Ukraine and Russia until moving to Australia as a preteen. The authenticity of Lana Kortchik’s writing, based on personal and family knowledge of that part of the world distinctly shines through. Kortchik also read dozens of memoirs and diaries of the Kiev survivors in preparation for the novel – true stories written by women who put their lives at risk documenting the Germans’ activities, which gave the storylines a strong factual base.

The story in “Sisters of War” starts out in the early 1940’s in Kiev, which has been under Soviet rule for over 20 years. Germans have been bombing the city and eventually bring Kiev under Nazi occupation, not leaving for over two years when the Soviet Red Army finally frees the city. The slice of time Kortchik chose for her novel framed the events well, making for an impactful read. As you can imagine with a WWII tale, there are many losses and heartbreaking experiences, but there is also love and hope, new life, and the indomitable spirit of the Ukrainian people. As our heroine Natasha reflects, “(T)heir lives… would forever be touched by war, but not broken. Never broken.”

#SistersOfWar
#LanaKortchik
#HQDigital
#HarperCollinsPublishers
#NetGalley… (mehr)

The positive reviews that this book got have me a bit confused. It was one of the most depressing books about war that I have ever read. That means it was certainly one of the most realistic portrayals of war I have ever read. Kudos to the author on that aspect.

However, the love story and the Disney-esque endings to the different threads of the story were absurd and the relationships between the sisters didn't really ring true.

This is a re-print and at .99 cents (Amazon on Kindle) price makes this a bargain just to read the descriptions of what life was like in Kiev (Kyiv) during this time.

*ARC supplied by the publisher.… (mehr)