Laddy Penreith was seventeen the night she met dissident Soviet writer Mischa Busnetsky and fell passionately and irrevocably in love. Surrounded by a watchful crowd, the two lovers could explore their love only in words.

Eight years later—years Mischa spent in the Gulag—the memory of that night and Mischa's voice was still all Laddy knew of passion. When he was suddenly released and exiled to the West, she rushed to him. And in Laddy's arms and love Mischa was reborn.

But Mischa had learned suspicion in a hard school, and still there were enemies working to keep them apart. All too soon an act of betrayal so poisoned their love that the powerful, passionate connection that had once sustained them both seemed destined now to destroy them.