Alina Adams – författare

Spanning nearly a century, from 1930s Siberia to contemporary Brighton Beach, a page turning, epic family saga centering on three generations of women in one Russian Jewish family—each striving to break free of fate and history, each yearning for love and personal fulfillment—and how the consequences of their choices ripple through time.Odessa, 1931. Marrying the handsome, wealthy Edward Gordon, Daria—born Dvora Kaganovitch—has fulfilled her mother’s dreams. But a woman’s plans are no match for the crushing power of Stalin’s repressive Soviet state. To survive, Daria is forced to rely on the kindness of a man who takes pride in his own coarseness.Odessa, 1970. Brilliant young Natasha Crystal is determined to study mathematics. But the Soviets do not allow Jewish students—even those as brilliant as Natasha—to attend an institute as prestigious as Odessa University. With her hopes for the future dashed, Natasha must find a new purpose—one that leads her into the path of a dangerous young man.Brighton Beach, 2019. Zoe Venakovsky, known to her family as Zoya, has worked hard to leave the suffocating streets and small minds of Brighton Beach behind her—only to find that what she’s tried to outrun might just hold her true happiness.Moving from a Siberian gulag to the underground world of Soviet refuseniks to oceanside Brooklyn, The Nesting Dolls is a heartbreaking yet ultimately redemptive story of circumstance, choice, and consequence—and three dynamic unforgettable women, all who will face hardships that force them to compromise their dreams as they fight to fulfill their destinies.

Spanning nearly a century, from 1930s Siberia to contemporary Brighton Beach, a page turning, epic family saga centering on three generations of women in one Russian Jewish family—each striving to break free of fate and history, each yearning for love and personal fulfillment—and how the consequences of their choices ripple through time.Odessa, 1931. Marrying the handsome, wealthy Edward Gordon, Daria—born Dvora Kaganovitch—has fulfilled her mother''s dreams. But a woman''s plans are no match for the crushing power of Stalin''s repressive Soviet state. To survive, Daria is forced to rely on the kindness of a man who takes pride in his own coarseness.Odessa, 1970. Brilliant young Natasha Crystal is determined to study mathematics. But the Soviets do not allow Jewish students—even those as brilliant as Natasha—to attend an institute as prestigious as Odessa University. With her hopes for the future dashed, Natasha must find a new purpose—one that leads her into the path of a dangerous young man.Brighton Beach, 2019. Zoe Venakovsky, known to her family as Zoya, has worked hard to leave the suffocating streets and small minds of Brighton Beach behind her—only to find that what she''s tried to outrun might just hold her true happiness.Moving from a Siberian gulag to the underground world of Soviet refuseniks to oceanside Brooklyn, The Nesting Dolls is a heartbreaking yet ultimately redemptive story of circumstance, choice, and consequence—and three dynamic unforgettable women, all who will face hardships that force them to compromise their dreams as they fight to fulfill their destinies.

Now expanded with a note from the author, 16 pages of photos, and a startling new epilogue that everyone in Oakdale is talking about! It''s a major event in Oakdale -- a black-tie gala honoring the Marron family''s fifty years of support for Oakdale''s Memorial Hospital. But high spirits are cut short when patron of honor Gregory Marron Jr. is delivered in his limo dead on arrival, from an apparent heart attack. Three women in the crowd have reasons of their own to suspect murder. . . . Event organizer Katie Peretti never understood her boyfriend Mike Kasnoff ''s reasons for not attending the party -- until now. After being wrongly implicated in a crime against the Marrons and serving a stiff sentence, Mike has nursed a simmering rage ever since. Maddie Coleman, the teen-aged sister of the limo''s driver, Henry, knows that her brother owed Marron thirty thousand dollars. She also knows he couldn''t pay him back and had only one recourse for permanently erasing the debt. Carly Snyder''s suspicions are more personal. The wife of police detective Jack Snyder, Carly was one of Marron''s mistresses. In a heated moment she wanted her shameful past dead and buried -- a wish her husband possibly honored. Now Katie, Maddie, and Carly, all three of them desperate to protect the men they love, are crossing paths in an investigation that''s uncovering more poisonous secrets in Oakdale than they ever imagined. The means, motives, and suspects are shifting with each new twist -- and one of these determined women may not live to see the killer revealed.