The Altar Girl: A Prequel (The Nadia Tesla Series) - Orest Stelmach (Kindle, AZW3) {BFTM}

Nadia Tesla's godfather is dead, and she knows it wasn't an accident. No one else in the insular Ukrainian immigrant community where she was raised seems suspicious of his death: the man drank, and a fall down his steep basement stairs sounds tragically plausible. But Nadia is not convinced, and she pursues the truth fearlessly—even when her life is in jeopardy.

Nadia's determination—her confident, unapologetic strength—is part of what I love about the heroine of The Altar Girl. In her, Orest has achieved a wild amalgamation of traits colored vividly by his own childhood experiences: Nadia is a driven financial analyst, a conflicted sister, and the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who believe she's the luckiest girl ever to have been born in America. They expect her to seize every opportunity and rise to great achievements.

Nadia's father once tested her mettle by leaving her alone to survive in the woods for three nights, a trial Orest faced at a similar age; and Nadia struggles to honor her cultural roots while establishing her identity as an American. Forced by her godfather's demise to confront the community she thought she'd left behind, she is drawn into a twisty plot of lies, half-truths, regrets, and old wounds—the wounds of her father's generation. The kinds of wounds that never disappear, that leave scars on the relationships between fathers and daughters, mothers and sons.

Orest dedicated this book to his parents. I like to think they would be proud of what he's achieved.

{BFTM}
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