Showing results by narrator "Annette Chown" in All Categories

As the January wind whips down the stairs to the train platform, Ellen Randall huddles into her coat, shivering. Suddenly, a flash of red catches her eye and she turns. It’s a scarf. Red and cream, in a large, checked pattern. And the person wearing it— No! It can’t be… Three weeks later. In the dimly lit depths of the abandoned station, an eerie silence hangs heavily in the stale air, wrapping around the young man like an invisible shroud. Every step he takes echoes through the tunnels. Cautiously, he ventures deeper into this forgotten place.

Nadia is an abstract thinker coming to terms with the harsh realities around her. She is a bookworm, a prankster, a wanderer, and a note-taker. She sees people gambling with life and soul for little apparent gain and wonders what she can do to make a difference. Progressively, her life is pulled apart by her family’s migration to Ukraine, a dubious courtship, the Chernobyl disaster, police surveillance, and an Afghan war. As Nadia comes of age, she finds that the bonds of family and friendship create an inseparable fate: to rescue one another or to drown.