Description:

From Publishers Weekly

In 1942, heroic Red Army sniper Tat'yana Levchenko, the eponymous heroine of this mildly compelling WWII-era thriller from White (_Soul Catcher_), travels to America as a goodwill ambassador. Her ostensible mission is to drum up financial and material support for the U.S.S.R. and to persuade FDR to open a second front in Europe. Stalin's secret police have other goals in mind, but Tat'yana wants only to return to her beloved homeland and continue killing German soldiers. Eleanor Roosevelt takes a shine to the young woman, who becomes the darling of the American press. Reluctantly, the beautiful sniper goes along with her espionage agent handler's demand that she spy on the first lady. In the end, Tat'yana must make a fateful choice involving an American army captain she's grown to love. Some readers may find Tat'yana's ethical and romantic struggles in the U.S. a letdown after the first part of the novel detailing her actions in the battle of Sevastopol. (Apr.)
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Review

[Audio Review] This engrossing story opens and closes with the voice of a sophisticated British journalist as portrayed by Anne Flosnik. But Flosnik s remarkable adroitness with accents soon causes the listener to forget any character other than Tat yana Levchenko, a stalwart Soviet recruited to join Eleanor Roosevelt on a promotional tour of America and coerced into pressing the first lady for confidential information. The subtleties of Tat yana s voice are extremely convincing as she grieves for her lost little daughter, as she falls in love with an American translator, and as she tells her story to the canny journalist many years later. The Roosevelts upper-crust tones are also believable. Tat yana s story is haunting, and Flosnik delivers. B.V.M. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2010] --Audiofile