Winter 1916. In St Petersburg snow is falling in a country on the brink of revolution. Beautiful & headstrong Sashenka Zeitlin is just sixteen. As her mother parties with Rasputin & her dissolute friends Sashenka slips into the frozen night to play her role in a dangerous game of conspiracy & seduction. Twenty years on Sashenka has a powerful husband & two children. Around her people are disappearing but her own family is safe. But shes about to embark on a forbidden love affair which will have devastating consequences. Sashenkas story lies hidden for half a century until a young historian goes deep into Stalins private archives & uncovers a heart-breaking story of passion & betrayal savage cruelty & unexpected heroism
- & one woman forced to make an unbearable choice.. .