In this honest and touching novel, Lydia Cutler explores a Jewish woman's coming-of-age under the Communist Soviet Union, the psychological effects of losing a parent, immigration, and how our futures don't have to be determined by our pasts.

Lilli is one of fourteen Goldblooms, all living in a tiny apartment in Kiev. She's as normal a child as she can be, a Jewish girl living under the oppressive Soviet Union with a father who makes illegal leather goods to pay for the treatments that ultimately fail to save her mother from cancer. Lilli comes of age with the weight of her circumstances on her shoulders, working meager jobs to support herself and her family and eventually turning to alcohol to numb her while she waits for life to pass her by. But when she meets Sergey Kaplan, she feels the first glimmer of hope for a meaningful and fulfilling life—if she can manage to emerge from the shadows of her past. 

Lydia Cutler was born in Kiev when it was still a part of the Soviet Union. In 1975, she immigrated to the United States with her family. Her first book, a non-fiction account tracing her father's family back to 1919, was published in 2005. She lives in San Diego, California.