In the 1930s, Stalin’s activists marched through the Soviet Union, espousing the greatness of collective farming. It was the first step in creating a man-made famine that, in Ukraine, stole almost 4 million lives. Inspired by the history the world forgot, and the Russian government denies, Erin Litteken reimagines their story. In 1929, Katya is 16 years old, surrounded by family and in love with the boy next door. When Stalin’s activists arrive in her village, it’s just a few, a little pressure to join the collective. But soon neighbors disappear, those who speak out are never seen again and every new day is uncertain.
Resistance has a price, and as desperate hunger grips the countryside, survival seems more a dream than a possibility. But, even in the darkest times, love beckons.
Seventy years later, a young widow discovers her grandmother’s journal, one that will reveal the long-buried secrets of her family’s haunted past.
This is a story of the resilience of the human spirit, the love that sees us through our darkest hours and the true horror of what happened during the Holodomor.
“I never imagined the release of my novel on a past oppression of the Ukrainian people would coincide with such a parallel tragedy.” Erin Litteken
May we never forget, lest history repeat itself.
A share of proceeds will be donated to DEC’s Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.
A sharp click echoed in the room, and everyone froze. The Russian’s cocked pistol pointed at Tato. “Are you resisting orders? If you are, we will have to label you an enemy of the people. We all know what happens to enemies of the people. I could shoot you right now, and nobody would care.”
Katya’s head buzzed. All the anger she’d felt morphed into sheer terror as she stared at her Tato. His beet-red face glistened with sweat and his hands curled slowly into fists, the anger crackling off him like a hungry fire seeking fuel. If someone didn’t intercede, he would be shot for attempting to murder Prokyp with his bare hands.
Mama, too, saw his inner struggle, for she stepped in front of Tato and spoke calmly. “I apologize for my husband’s behavior. He’s overprotective of his daughters. He didn’t mean what he said. We’ll cooperate, I swear it.”
The Russian smirked and lowered his gun. Dropping Alina’s hand, Katya pulled her father into a hug and spoke in his ear. “Please, Tato, there is no harm done, but we can’t lose you. Please.” She felt the tension lessen from his body, but vibrations of anger still throbbed like the veins on his neck.
Prokyp watched the scene with amusement, then sauntered back over to his cohorts, smiling. The Russian turned to him and asked with complete sincerity, “Have you been offended by this man? What would you like to do, Comrade?”
Prokyp glanced at Tato and then at Alina, who was white as a sheet, but holding her head high as Mama had taught them to. Katya’s legs wobbled, so she locked her knees and held her breath as they waited for this fool to decide the fate of their family.
“I suppose I can overlook it this once, as long as he and his family promise to cooperate fully in the future.” His gaze lingered on Alina. “But we shall have to check back here often to make sure they are behaving.”
Another activist pushed into the house with a large sack of wheat balanced on his shoulder. “I found this, and another just like it, hidden in the barn loft.”
Katya’s heart sank. She’d worried the wheat in the barn wasn’t hidden well enough, but Tato thought it safe out of sight beneath the hay.
“You can’t take that!” Tato shouted. “It’s my seed for planting this fall!”
“This will pay your quota. For now.” The Russian Soviet waved a hand dismissively, as if suddenly bored by them. “Come, we must move to the next house.”
The woman cast an apologetic look toward Mama and hurried behind the men as they left. The door swung wildly in their wake, and none of them moved until Tato strode forward and slammed it shut, though not before Katya saw the activists’ cart stacked high with sacks of grain, just like the ones they’d taken from the barn.
Erin Litteken is a debut novelist with a degree in history and a passion for research. At a young age, she was enthralled by stories of her family’s harrowing experiences in Ukraine before, during and after World War II. She lives in Illinois, USA with her husband and children.
IS IT TOO LATE FOR ADELE TO RETURN TO HER DAUGHTER’S LIFE?
When her ex-husband reappears in her life determined to spend more time with their child, Adele Collier allows him to take Judy to France for the summer. As the summer goes by, an internal battle rages in Adele’s heart. Can she give up her glamorous lifestyle to win her daughter’s heart?
Six-year-old Judy is more than happy to trade Adele’s neglect for her father’s adoring care. She loves his vineyard and wishes she could stay there forever, but someday she must return to England. Can Judy trust her mother again?
By the time Granny, Aunt Millie, and Judy finished cleaning the incredibly cluttered flat, it was past noon and soon Judy’s “little friends,” as Granny called them, would be arriving for the party.
In truth, Judy didn’t know her “friends.” They were all grandchildren of her granny’s many church friends who Judy had only met a few times and didn’t much care for. But she supposed that wasn’t quite fair. She just didn’t know them.
However, Granny wanted Judy to have friends, so Judy would try. She’d do anything to please Granny, after all. Who else in this world did she have to please who would actually notice?
Aunt Millie, she supposed, but Aunt Millie just wanted a hug every so often and some acknowledgement that she existed. Judy could do that. After all, wasn’t that what she wanted, too?
Granny set about preparing the refreshments only to find a disturbing lack of the correct ingredients. So she gave Judy a list and told her to run across the street to the grocery and give it to Mr. Tilney along with a little purse containing the sum that would be required to make the purchases.
As Judy exited the flat building, she noticed a tall, skinny man sitting on the curb, wearing a rumpled business suit. He had removed his hat and was twirling it around and around on his finger. His reddish hair was messy and his blue eyes distant. He had a small mustache on his upper lip—at least it was neatly clipped, though. A mustache was bad enough, but a messy mustache was unbearable in Judy’s opinion.
Judy tilted her head to the side, took a step nearer the man, and tried to see what he was staring at across the street.
She could see nothing worth such serious deliberation. Just Mr. Tilney’s store and Mother’s flower shop and the small flat over the flower shop.
The man seemed to be staring at nothing, into a distance that didn’t really exist.
He turned. The two stared at each other for a few incredibly long seconds before he cleared his throat.
“Who are you?” His voice was strangled, and his eyes fastened on her face in a hungry sort of way.
She didn’t know what to think of that. It didn’t seem mean, but she’d been given so many warnings about mean men that she knew she ought to be cautious. “Judy.” Surely telling him her name wouldn’t hurt a thing.
“I know. At least, most of me knew.” The man straightened his back and looked her up and down before returning to her face, a bashful grin twisting his lips.
“Then why did you ask?” asked Judy.
“Because I wanted to be sure.” He ran a hand through his hair and watched her with eyes a bit closed, like he was wincing in pain. “Sometimes it’s good to double check before assuming something, especially if you’ve gotten in trouble before for not being sure and assuming and moving too fast for your own good.”
“Oh.” That made sense, she supposed. Caution was definitely preferable. One didn’t make mistakes if one were cautious, and mistakes weren’t something her mother appreciated. Especially ones that caused a mess Mother had to clean up. Not that she ever cleaned unless she absolutely must. Mother didn’t mind most messes. The cleaning up messes part, however? It made Mother most cross. Judy hated when her mother went from not caring at all to being cross. It was the worst feeling in the world.
“You look like your Aunt Lola,” said the man, referring to the paternal aunt who visited occasionally. “But your hair isn’t curly like hers.”
“I know,” said Judy. “It’s curlier when my braids aren’t so tight.” She tugged one to show how tight and unforgiving it was.
“Mine would curl if I let it grow, probably. Like my mother’s hair.” His voice was raspy, and Judy wondered if it was always like that or if he was just sad right then. “Who told you you look like her?”
“Aunt Lola,” said Judy.
“Oh.” He stood. Judy was obliged to crane her neck to continue looking him in the eye. He was quite tall, and not just because Judy was quite short. Her mother was half his size, she was sure. “Are you supposed to be talking to strangers?” the man asked.
Judy shook her head. “I’m supposed to be getting these things and hurrying back,” she said, holding up the slip of paper.
He accepted the grocery list and gave it a looking over before passing it back to her. “Well, then you’d best be about your business.”
“Will you be about your business, too?” Judy asked.
The man nodded, and his voice cleared a bit as he replied. “I will. I need to see my sister before I go to a party, or she’ll be mad at me. We can’t have that.”
“Good. You looked lonely sitting on the street there.”
“Did I?” The man had an odd little twist to his lips now that told her he had some sort of feeling that wasn’t quite comfortable.
Judy offered a bit of a smile to set him at ease. “Yes. And that’s no good! After all, there are so many people in the world that one oughtn’t to be lonely!”
Or at least one oughtn’t to be lonely when one was a big man who could go anywhere and meet anyone. Judy couldn’t really make friends because she got in trouble for wandering off, and it was hard enough making friends anyway, but the man could do anything he wanted. He could make dozens of friends. Judy felt a flash of jealousy but quickly reined it in.
The man laughed dryly. “Well, what if there was only one person in the world a fellow wanted to be with?”
“Then he’d better be with that person.” Judy glanced across the street. “I’d better go. Granny will be worried. Besides, I guess you are a stranger, and Aunt Millie says you might be mean, even in places I think are safe. She’s most afraid someone will be mean to me.”
“Very well. Run along, Judy.”
Judy paused. “How’d you know my name?” Strangers weren’t supposed to know her name.
“You told me, baby,” the man reminded her, eyes twinkling.
“Oh,” said Judy. She stood still for a moment, contemplating whether strangers ought to call her “baby,” then she hurried across the street and into Mr. Tilney’s store.
In no time at all, she was back out with the groceries. The man was gone.
Kellyn Roth is a historical romance & women’s fiction author who writes about the empty places where hope has the most room to grow. Her novels include the inspirational Victorian family saga, The Chronicles of Alice and Ivy, and the Kees & Colliers series, which follows a broken family in the tumultuous years of the first half of the 20th century.
Kellyn is a student of the Author Conservatory, a virtual assistant, and a writing coach. When not building her author career, she is likely getting lost somewhere in the Pacific Northwest with her friends, watching period dramas and facetious comedies, or spending time with her husband.
Adele Collier has sought a carefree lifestyle ever since her tragic childhood. Determined to never allow anyone or anything to control her life or emotions again, she consistently seeks distraction in gaiety. But shaking her ghosts isn’t as easy as she’d like.
Troy Kee has been alone in the world since the Great War took his parents and left him in charge of his younger sister. When she marries, he’s left to seek after his goal of a healthy, complete family. But how can he focus on his dream when trouble plagues his family vineyard?
When Adele and Troy meet, a whirlwind romance begins—but can two lost souls have a healthy relationship?
“Papa and Louis will be here soon,” Adele said, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen between them.
“I know.” Kenneth stared off up the creek, eyes half-shuttered. “Good to have them here at the same time as me, I guess.”
Adele cocked her head. “You guess?”
“Yes. I guess.” He ruffled her hair again, and she swatted his hand away.
“But why aren’t you sure? Don’t you want to see Louis and Papa?” she asked.
He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “Yes, Della-bell. I want to see Louis and Father. But at the same time, I don’t.” He cocked his head. “When I was in London with a few schoolmates, we met a group of women on the streets. They gave me this.” Kenneth handed her the flowers again, reached into his well-cut jacket, and pulled something out of the inside pocket. He extended it to Adele.
Wonderingly, Adele accepted the object from her brother and twirled it in her fingers. “What is it?”
“A white feather.”
“I know that.” Adele laughed nervously. She sensed something strange in the air between them, something she couldn’t quite pin down. “But why do you have it?” She hesitated. “Is it … a present for me?” Sometimes Kenneth brought her things home from London, but usually they made sense. Like a new doll or sweets or ribbons—one could never have enough ribbons.
He chuckled, the sound grinding on her ears oddly. “No, Della-bell. Not a present.” He took the feather back from her and tucked it into his coat pocket again. “How old would you say I look, Della-bell?”
“You’re seventeen.” Honestly, Kenneth asked the silliest questions sometimes!
“No, but … what age do I look to you? Could I pass for eighteen? Nineteen? Twenty?”
Adele looked up at her big brother’s frowning face, then regarded his long legs and broad shoulders. “Nineteen, but not twenty,” she said at last.
“That’s what they thought in London. That I was a man.” He clenched his teeth. “And, really, seventeen is a man, I think.”
She was cynical of this—though he was much older than she, he wasn’t quite a man yet—and shrugged her shoulders. But if Kenneth said so.
“You see, Della-bell—” He patted his pocket, but his face quickly turned to a scowl. “Oh, never mind. Let’s go back to the house.” All the sunshine had gone out of his face and voice. Adele stepped to his side and took his hand, allowing her bouquet to fall to the ground unheeded.
“Are you all right, Kenny?”
“Yes, I’m quite all right.” He sighed. “Come now. It’s almost time for tea.”
“No, it’s not. It’s hardly two.”
“Well, anyway, I have some reading to do before the holiday’s over.”
Adele wrapped her fingers tighter around her brother’s hand. “What is it, Kenny? Can you tell me? I can keep a secret. I promise.”
Kenneth hesitated, staring at her face, then knelt in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Della-bell, you know how the first thing Louis did when the war started was sign up?”
“Well, he was going to be in the army, anyway,” Adele said. Like his father before him, Louis Collier was strictly military. Unlike her precious Kenneth. Kenneth was going to be something grand, she was sure—a doctor or lawyer or Prime Minister.
“Yes, but …” Kenneth’s words trailed off. “Della-bell, I want to join up.”
Adele wrinkled her nose. “Join the war, you mean?” That didn’t make sense. “I thought you were going to go to college.”
“Yes, but … everyone else … everyone else is joining up. My older schoolmates are planning on it.” He shrugged.
“But that doesn’t mean you should.” Something like panic tightened in Adele’s chest. He couldn’t join the army. He was her Kenneth. He belonged to her, and she couldn’t let anyone who belonged to her go off to France where, well, anything could happen.
One couldn’t live anywhere in England now and avoid hearing about someone’s son or brother or husband dying. It was dangerous over there, and therefore not a place for Adele’s big brother to go. Ever.
Louis and Papa were different. That was their job. Her father, Papa, had been going off to strange faraway places all her life, and Louis had started doing that, too.
But Kenneth was precious. Kenneth was hers. The only person who really belonged to Adele all the way. No one else loved her like Kenneth did.
“Yes, but …” Kenneth sighed. “I think it’s rather my duty to join up.”
“I don’t think so. Besides, you can’t until next year.”
Kenneth’s hand was in his pocket again. She knew he was fingering the feather. “I could forge documents. I was raised in a military home—I know what they will want from me and how to get it faked.”
“But you could go to prison for that!” Adele exclaimed. “Besides, Mother wouldn’t like it.”
“Yes, she wouldn’t like it. But if I were to do this, I’d be rather beyond what Mother would like.” His hand dropped to his side. “I feel as if … as if I want to do something useful. Like Father and Louis.”
Adele could understand feeling useless, but that wasn’t any reason to run off and join the army. “But why?”
“Because … it’s difficult to explain, Della-bell. You wouldn’t understand.”
Adele’s brow wrinkled. “But I love you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Kenneth chuckled and squeezed her shoulder. “I love you, too. But I need to go. Can’t you see? This would … this would make me as capable and strong and brave as Louis—or even Father. And that’d be … that’d be everything I ever wanted.”
“But what about me?”
He grinned down at her. “What about you?”
“What … what will I do while you’re gone?” she asked. She couldn’t put it into words, quite, but Kenneth was her best friend. She loved her parents and Louis, but Kenneth was different. He was so important, so much a part of her life.
“What you do when I’m here, I imagine, only without me. You’ll be fine.” Kenneth turned back toward the house, and Adele followed him.
She didn’t know what to say. Nor what she could do to deter him.
“You can be brave, too, Della-bell.” A smile quirked about the edges of his lips. “You can keep the homefires burning.”
Adele scowled. “I don’t want to.”
“Well, you’ve got to, so there you go.” He glanced at her. “And, er, don’t tell Mother.”
“Why? What are you going to do?”
“Go a few towns over and join the army.” He reached over and tugged at a lock of her hair. “Not until Father and Louis leave, though. So don’t worry about that. I’ll wait until they’re gone to make my exit.”
“All right,” Adele said after a moment. “I won’t tell Mother. But you have to promise to be very safe and come home.” “Of course, of course. How could I not when my Della-bell is waiting for me?” he teased
Kellyn Roth is a historical romance & women’s fiction author who writes about the empty places where hope has the most room to grow. Her novels include the inspirational Victorian family saga, The Chronicles of Alice and Ivy, and the Kees & Colliers series, which follows a broken family in the tumultuous years of the first half of the 20th century.
Kellyn is a student of the Author Conservatory, a virtual assistant, and a writing coach. When not building her author career, she is likely getting lost somewhere in the Pacific Northwest with her friends, watching period dramas and facetious comedies, or spending time with her husband.
