Turtledove and Little Balls

Being alone has its merits but to Anna Corrian loneliness has long outworn its welcome, Cut off from family and old friends, by her own choice, her past comes racing back in a single night when she discovers a sister she never knew she had. Or is she a sister? In trying to define their relationship they unearth a past of both ecstasy and horror, buried in a conflict between survival and human dignity. The stage for their past is the period from the end of the first world war to the final destruction of the Third Reich in 1945. The acts unfold in the trenches of France and Belgium , in the Nuremberg party rallies of Adolph Hitler, and in the outskirts of the siege of Leningrad. Ancient steam engines and tractors, a beautiful Russian peasant girl disguised as a man, and the periodic intrusion of a mysterious benefactor result finally in discovering the secret of their relationship in the chalk cliffs of France as the victorious Americans enter,