‘Wonderful . . . a vivid and endearing pictures of family life’ The Times
‘Heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure, this is an esquisite, compelling study of survival and emotional resilience’ Daily Mail
September 1939. The Soviets advance into Poland. Young officer’s wife Lena has one chance to flee the country with her daughter. Instead she chooses to return to her childhood home. When the Russian army reach their village, Lena and her family are denounced as enemies of the state and exiled to the freezing hell of Siberia.
Amid the hunger and back-breaking work in deep snow, she discovers something remarkable: even while you’re fighting to survive, it is possible to fall in love. What she can’t imagine are the consequences of love. And the choice that must be made.
‘Heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure, this is an esquisite, compelling study of survival and emotional resilience’ Daily Mail
September 1939. The Soviets advance into Poland. Young officer’s wife Lena has one chance to flee the country with her daughter. Instead she chooses to return to her childhood home. When the Russian army reach their village, Lena and her family are denounced as enemies of the state and exiled to the freezing hell of Siberia.
Amid the hunger and back-breaking work in deep snow, she discovers something remarkable: even while you’re fighting to survive, it is possible to fall in love. What she can’t imagine are the consequences of love. And the choice that must be made.
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Reviews
Love and loss, and courage and compassion, collide in this brilliantly told story of survival against the odds. Based on the true story of her grandmother, Paula Lichtarowicz's exquisite novel takes readers on a family journey full of passion, longing, regret, and eventual acceptance of choices made a lifetime ago. In these riveting, heartfelt, and brutally honest pages, Lena keeps a lifetime of secrets and dreams from her loved ones, but never allows them to stop her from loving in return
Lichtarowicz is a writer of great talent, with the ability to portray hardship and grief shot through with humour and hope. The gorgeous prose, compelling storyline, and emotional depth ensure that The Snow Hare remains in the reader's mind long after the last page
The Snow Hare by Paula Lichtarowicz is an extraordinary novel of fate, hope, love and determination. Lichtarowicz' beautifully drawn story, set against a backdrop of real historical events, is every bit as heart-wrenching as it is inspiring. The Snow Hare brings the past to life in a vivid, evocative way - reminding us that history echoes through time, and hope can sustain us even through the most difficult of circumstances. This is one of the finest historical fiction novels I've read in years
I loved this book, though it left a huge crack in my heart. A beautifully written, enthralling story of an unforgettable family caught up in a conflict that takes them all the way to a Siberian work camp. The main character, Lena, is determined and compelling, and the novel a brilliant study of what it means to survive both the best and worst of times
'Wonderful . . . a vivid and endearing picture of family life'
Heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure, this is an exquisite, compelling study of survival and emotional resilience
Paula Lichtarowicz's profound and beautifully written third novel brings her back to her roots . . . [she] mesmerises us with the honesty of her characterisations and the light-handedness with which she treats the expression of those characters' feelings
The Snow Hare is a well-written, compelling account of a devastating period of history, and one which provides a different perspective to the usual Nazi-focused World War II novel of survival
Written in richly impressive prose, The Snow Hare celebrates the human ability to survive in even the worst circumstances