It’s 1937, and Katya dreams of being a writer while working as a servant girl on a Trakehner horse estate in East Prussia. But as the Nazi presence increasingly dominates their lives, she finds she must deal with the owner’s son, an aspiring SS recruit, and a fellow servant girl who is a Nazi supporter. Her refuge is riding in the peaceful East Prussian countryside with her boyfriend David. But one evening David has a seizure and, according to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, he must be sterilized. David and Katya struggle to salvage their relationship in the shadow of the ominous changes looming. Goldstone deftly describes the incremental steps leading to the horrors of the Nazi takeover while evocatively showing how these changes impact the lives of her characters.

Gabriele Goldstone writes the books she wanted to read when she was growing up in the Winnipeg suburbs. As the daughter of immigrants, she couldn’t find her family stories in any books and instead escaped into the world of Nancy Drew. She holds a masters’ degree from the University of Manitoba, focusing on German literature, and a BA in English. She is a critically acclaimed author of books for children and young adults, including Crow Stone, Tainted Amber, and Broken Stone.

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“4 stars - highly recommended” — Canadian Review of Materials

"Goldstone deftly plunges the reader into a past when Hitler's ideas seemed new and fresh. A timely read." - Marsha Forchuk Skrypunch, author of Making Bombs for Hitler