Tarnished

by Lesia Annastasia Chytra

It is 2011, and Anastasia is on a routine outing with her granddaughter when tensions come to a boil. The catalyst of the argument forces her to reflect on the winding road that lead her to the life that she now lives as an old woman. She remembers a time in her life when she was not Anastasia, but Tasya...In the spring of 1942, Tasya is a young girl living with her mother in a Ukrainian village on the Polish border. Her sister, Kateryna, has recently returned from working in Germany, which sets off events that will shape Tasya’s life forever. Forced to work in Germany as a labourer, Tasya must grow up quickly in order to survive in the midst of the German war-machine.Spanning seven decades, Tarnished is a story about identity, survival, family history, and the precariousness of relationships. Told from the voice of Anastasia, her daughter Alya, and granddaughter Sofiya, it is a multi-generational account of how self-identity is as much about the past as it is the present.

280 pages, Paperback

Published July 30, 2015

Reviews

[Tanya Mykytiuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliantly written! A fantastic read, based on actual experiences from the author's grandmother's life. Tasya, a young girl from rural Ukraine is taken from her home and family to work in Germany during the Second World War.

Ms.Chytra has done an impeccable job of fictionalizing her grandmother’s experience, and enhanced her story with well researched first-person accounts of Ford-Werke employees and other historical documents. She has an ability to describe scenes in intimate detail that makes it easy for her readers to visualize the experience, and sympathize with young, naive Tasya.

This does not read like a self-published first novel!! I'm very much looking forward to Ms.Chytra's future novels!