In the 1970s, a woman keeps vigil for a lover lost in World War II, in a "sensuously styled, elegiac" novel by the author of Dreams of My Russian Summers (Publishers Weekly).

Near the end of World War II, nineteen-year-old Boris Koptek left the small village of Mirnoe to join the Russian army. He swore to the sixteen-year-old love of his life, Vera, that as soon as he returned they would marry. Then, young Boris was reported killed in action while crossing the Spree River with his engineering battalion on the way to Berlin. But Vera refused to believe it. For thirty years, she has waited for Boris to come home.

Her extraordinary story, her resilience, and her still-radiant beauty is captivating to a callow young journalist from Leningrad who has just arrived on the northern White Sea coast to research local traditions. Day by day, as he learns more about the enigmatic Vera, he finds himself enriched, changed, and falling under her sad and exquisite spell.

From an award-winning author, this is a "wonderful novel...an elegantly enigmatic tale" (Booklist).