Perilous Beautiful World

An exquisite historical odyssey about three ordinary people ensnared in World War I’s chaotic aftermath. Though strangers at first, their fates will entwine indelibly in their life-or-death quests for refuge, family, and meaning.

Mathilde is a recently married young woman in a Russian shtetl south of Kyiv. Despite the ongoing hardships and violence, she is filled with hope for the life she is building with her new husband and prays the civil war roiling their country will soon end. But one afternoon a horrific event forces her from the only home she has ever known, and an epic journey begins.

In frigid northern Russia, Michael is an American soldier working as an interpreter and translator. Dismayed that the troops there, who should have gone home after the armistice, are now caught up in Russia’s civil war, he angers his superior officer and is sent to the front lines. He soon finds himself in a firefight that will propel him into dangers of a very different kind.

And on the embattled streets of Lvov, Poland, parentless children struggle to survive. Sunny, a young boy, is one of them. With no memory of his early life, he imagines that he is a prince separated from his royal parents. When he becomes untethered from the gang of kids who have been both his family and his protection for longer than he can remember, he must risk trusting someone new if he is to make it through what lies ahead.

Based on true events and the author’s family history, Perilous Beautiful World is a powerful, sweeping tale of courage, perseverance, and connection in a time when hope becomes the most perilous—yet necessary—act of all.