Maria Voronova’s novels take us back to the recent past—difficult, yet somehow close. Lonely, lost people search for love and yet find it, even though they often have to fight for the right to feel it.
Eleonora Lvova understood early at the Smolny Institute: one title of a princess isn’t enough to find family happiness. What’s needed is beauty and money—and this sensible, smart girl has neither. So, without waiting for the graduation ball, she leaves Smolny and chooses the path of a sister of mercy. Behind her shoulders are thousands of people saved. Only there’s no time or strength left for her own destiny: Eleonora loves hopelessly Dr. Voinov, who leaves to serve in the Red Army—and for a “noble” girl, this feeling looks almost like a crime.