A Bend in the Stars

Russia, summer 1914. War with Germany is close, and the Czar's army is tightening its hold on the local Jewish community. Miri Abramov is about to become one of the country's only female surgeons. Her brother Vanya, a physicist, is working on the last open puzzles in Einstein's theory of relativity.

Their parents drowned while trying to reach America, and their babushka, a well-known matchmaker, raised them. She taught them to fight, to kill if they must, and to keep an escape plan ready. Now Miri and Vanya have to decide whether to leave the homeland that shaped them.

The decision is taken out of their hands. War is declared, and Vanya disappears along with Miri's fiancé. Miri risks a firing squad to search for both of them, while a solar eclipse approaches that will darken the skies over Russia. Her family's safety and the course of science depend on what happens next.

This is historical fiction with a love story at its centre, built on real history and inspired by the solar eclipse of 1914. The scientific rivalry with Einstein runs alongside the upheaval of World War I, and the story moves across Russia with the urgency of a chase.