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Harper
September 2010
On Sale: September 7, 2010
480 pages
ISBN: 0061962163
EAN: 9780061962165
Hardcover
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Historical
A mysterious jewel holds the key to
a life-changing secret, in this breathtaking tale of love
and art, betrayal and redemption.
When she decides to auction her remarkable jewelry
collection, Nina Revskaya, once a great star of the Bolshoi
Ballet, believes she has finally drawn a curtain on her
past. Instead, the former ballerina finds herself
overwhelmed by memories of her homeland and of the events,
both glorious and heartbreaking, that changed the course of
her life half a century ago. It was in Russia that
she discovered the magic of the theater; that she fell in
love with the poet Viktor Elsin; that she and her dearest
companions—Gersh, a brilliant composer, and the exquisite
Vera, Nina’s closest friend—became victims of Stalinist
aggression. And it was in Russia that a terrible discovery
incited a deadly act of betrayal—and an ingenious escape
that led Nina to the West and eventually to Boston.
Nina has kept her secrets for half a lifetime. But two
people will not let the past rest: Drew Brooks, an
inquisitive young associate at a Boston auction house, and
Grigori Solodin, a professor of Russian who believes that a
unique set of jewels may hold the key to his own ambiguous
past. Together these unlikely partners begin to unravel a
mystery surrounding a love letter, a poem, and a necklace of
unknown provenance, setting in motion a series of
revelations that will have life-altering consequences for
them all. Interweaving past and present, Moscow and
New England, the backstage tumult of the dance world and the
transformative power of art, Daphne Kalotay’s luminous first
novel—a literary page-turner of the highest order—captures
the uncertainty and terror of individuals powerless to
withstand the forces of history, while affirming that even
in times of great strife, the human spirit reaches for
beauty and grace, forgiveness and transcendence.
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