Year of Night

Year of Night tells the story of a young Russian émigré and her struggle to free herself from a net of conflicting loyalties, passions and betrayal amid the colour and excitement of 1920s Paris. In the chaos of Revolutionary Russia, 18-year-old Nadia Serova is forced to flee with false papers provided by her mysterious ‘Uncle Igor’, a charismatic photographer. Igor confesses that he is a key member of ‘The Trust’ – a secret anti-Bolshevik organisation run from the heart of the Kremlin, known only as ‘Moscow’. Igor recruits her as his partner and they swear a blood oath of allegiance. In Paris, they join a flood of White Russian émigrés: officers, philosophers, poets, bohemians and former aristocrats who haunt Montparnasse and Billancourt, scraping a living, quarrelling and living in a hotbed of gossip and conspiracies as they plot the inevitable Bolshevik collapse, and their return. Nadia befriends Arensky, a former White general, secretly creating an anti-Bolshevik force; at the same time, she meets Alyosha, who dreams of uniting both Reds and Whites. Her relationship with Igor becomes more intense; she becomes his muse and then his mistress, although he flaunts his relationship with his former lover. As the ‘Moscow’ organisation increase pressure for action, and violence stalks the streets of Paris, Nadia realises she might be at the centre of a web not of her making. For who is Igor really? And what are his real intentions? Year of Night is a gripping work of historical romantic fiction which explores rarely-fictionalised parts of history. It will appeal to female readers interested in social history and Russian culture. Kate has been inspired by a number of authors, including Chekhov, Evelyn Waugh, Alice Munro and Willa Cather. Year of Night is comparable to Gillian Slovo’s The Ice Palace, William Boyd’s Restless, Helen Dunmore’s The Betrayal and Anna Funder’s All That I Am. A £1 donation from each paperback will go to St Gregory's aid to disadvantaged in Russia and the former Soviet Union.