eyes.2c Reviews

The Berlin Letters : A Cold War Novel   by Katherine Reay     ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Improbable? Possibly not. When the wall dividing Berlin went up, the world gasped. When the wall came down the world was ecstatic. Luisa Voekler is a baby when the wall interrupts lives. Her mother, Monica, throws Luisa across the razor wire to her grandparents. Monica attempts to follow, climbing through the wire. At the last minute she is noticed by the guards. Luisa’s father Harris is a successful journalist in East Berlin, a true believer, a product of the benevolent state.  It’s only years later he becomes a subversive. Her grandparents take Luisa and flee to the states. It seems there is something about her grandfather that made him an asset to those there. He’s an expert cryptographer. Luisa’s grandfather taught her from a child to decipher riddles and codes. She even had to solve codes to find her birthday presents. When older, Luisa trains with the CIA as an agent but she’s suddenly moved...

Death of the Red Rider  (Leningrad Confidential #2) by Yulia Yakovleva,  translated by  Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A glimpse into the conditions, the harshness of Soviet Russia post the revolution as  Leningrad  Detective Vasily Zaitsev of the Criminal Investigation Department investigates the death of a trotting horse and its Red Army Cavalry rider. A death brought about by something unusual, strange even. Filled with darting, often satirical commentary on the times, the novel is dark, brooding and at times savage, with moments of compassion. A time when the Red Terror is unleashed, the political purge by the Bolsheviks. Zaitsev’s search takes him to  Novocherkassk in Southern Russia where the Cavalry training school has suddenly been relocated. Is this a subterfuge, an effort to save the horses or something else? An unasked for assistant, Comrade Zoya, is sent with him. She’s prickly and annoying. There’s more here than meets the eye. Is she checking ...

The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight trilogy #1) by  Katherine Arden                              I could not put this down. I read into the night, transfixed by this medieval fantasy set in the wintery northern Russian cold. I was transfixed by the young girl Vasilisa, daughter of a local Lord, a magic bearer who is persecuted by the new,y come priest for witchly behavior as she tries to marry the old protective hearth and home ways with the teachings of the church. The honoring of the spirits and demons is a colorful background to this story of love and heart. The  story of a startling young woman, and of Morozko, the frost-demon and winter-king  and of his brother Bear. Reading Auden's author notes gives a fascinating insight into what she was trying to achieve with Russian names, history, and folklore. I'm still wondering why it took me so long to read this absolute gem. I was g...