Davinsky Labour Camp, Siberia, 1933. Sofia Morozpva knows she has to escape. All that sustains her through the bitter cold and hard labour are the stories told by her friend Anna, beguiling tales of a charmed upbringing in Petrograd - and of Anna’s fervent love for a passionate revolutionary, Vasily.
So when Anna falls gravely ill, Sofia makes a promise to escape the camp and find Vasily. But Russia, gripped by the iron fist of Communism, is no longer the country of her friend’s childhood. Sofia’s perilous search takes her from industrial factories to remote villages, where she discovers a web of secrecy and lies - and an overwhelming love that threatens her promise to Anna. But time is running out. And time, Sofia knows, is something neither she nor Anna has.
