Roxana Spicer has provided an exceptional memoir about her mother, Rosa's struggle to survive the Nazis and her own prolonged journey to discover the past that Rosa was unable to share with her. Her successful journalist background offered her entree into places and people others probably would never have been to access. And, her tenacity unearthed information about the war and Rosa either long buried or even thought destroyed.
There must not be a greater thrill than to be able to return home after fifty years. I had spent time in Russia during the nineties when Petestroika was in full swing.
Therefore I understood how Rosa could be so excited about going home. The shopping, the anticipation - the anxiety.
My mind's eye could see Rosa, Roxana, her family including the decorated Russian army relative tossing back vodkas, trading tales that brought them back together.
I couldn't help but shed tears.
Simply beautiful.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to be immersed in this exquisite memoir.
Thank you.

A truly fascinating subject and I admire the author's pursuit of her family history. For me, though, I didn't fully connect with the narrative. Well written but, for some reason, I found my attention jumping around a bit. Still, an important and valuable work.

Read my full review: https://www.mwgerard.com/russia-disquiet/

Roxana Spicer’s mother did not have to imagine the results of a Bolshevik takeover. Born under Lenin, Agnes (as she was known to her daughter) was forced to serve in the Red Army, was captured by the Nazis, sent to a prisoner camp, managed to survive and escape, somehow get to Canada, open a roadside restaurant, get married, and have a life.

Her daughter knows very little of this traumatic and exotic life. Now an adult, she is an investigative journalist, and is determined to use her skills to understand her mother’s past. Roxana carefully asks questions of her mother, trying to tease out pieces when she seems to be in a talkative mood. Roxana also made a number visits to Russia to meet and talk to relatives who might have stories to share. She finds many are still reluctant to talk about what happened.

The book stretches across the three-plus decades of a changing and crumbling Soviet facade to opening Iron Curtain. The narrative wanders from present investigations to historical context to childhood memories, reflecting how family stories are often told and remembered, weaving in and out.

I usually love historical fiction, but this one unfortunately did not keep my attention. The chapters were too chopped up & really needed some rework. The characters were not likable & it was too dragged out. Unless a rewrite, I would unfortunately, & sadly skip this book.

This was a fascinating book! What a story! It got a big heavy and dry in places, but overall, this was a privilege to read and I am very grateful for the opportunity to have been chosen for an ARC. I will definitely be recommending this to family and friends in conversation as I can’t stop thinking about it!

Thank you Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada for this arc.

The subtitle of this book made it impossible for me to resist. Rosa sounds like she was one hell of a woman and also a woman who needed that grit and determination to survive blow after blow that life dealt her. At times this was not an easy book to read but then I’d remind myself that I wasn’t living it either and mentally shut up and get back to reading. This isn’t just the story of Rosa Spicer and how she got from the Ural Mountains to Saskatchewan, Canada. It’s also Roxana’s lifelong pursuit of the truth of her mother’s life.

Roxana grew up to be a reporter and eventually seemed to devote her life to discovering what her mother would never talk about – her life during WWII. When pressed, Rosa would ask why did her daughter want to know all this? “It’s past, it’s over.” She didn’t want to remember any of it, herself. Along the way she uncovers, bit by bit, little pieces and traces of her mother’s past. Certain possibilities pull Roxana up and have her question herself and how much does she really want to know.

The last section of the book dove into the incredible efforts of the USSR after the war to claw back any citizen who had become a traitor merely by being captured or living in the West during the war.

There are some issues that Roxana laid to rest about her mother’s past while other things will probably never be known. I say probably as new AI tech is assisting in reading and digitizing what evidence is left and new details may be uncovered. The final pages recount Rosa’s only visit back to Russia after the end of the Cold War over fifty years after she left the Urals. The writing is, at times, a bit stream of conscious-esque but gripping all the same. B

Roxana Spicer weaves an epic tale of survival, heroism, and heartbreak exploring some of the darkest parts of history, parts which her mother survived. The writing is gripping and well paced and does justice to the source material. It’s not a light story, it’s not a particularly happy story, but it’s a story that deserves to be heard.

This book unfolds like a mystery as the author tries to uncover her mother’s history with bits and pieces of her story. What is revealed is nothing less than an incredible story of survival against all odds. It feels like it should be historical fiction. From surviving a paranoid Stalinist Russia in childhood to fighting for the under supplied Red Army to being held as a POW in Germany to escaping the Soviet police in post war Europe (who saw any Soviet POWs as traitors - “loyal citizens didn’t get captured”) to finally starting over in a new country with no knowledge of the local language, any one of the events could have been the end, would have been for most normal people, but she keeps going.

Definitely a book that you won’t forget. Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

This was a very interesting book. Real eye opener with the Russians. Germans, United States and Britain.. This young woman named AG.N.E s was from the ukraine and she went prove a patriotic war at that time. When Joseph. STA L I I Came to power in the 20s.A lot of bad things started to happen. Her family was affected.Her mother was taken away. She left home at fifteen to fight for the red army. But before this she was married and this did not turn out well. This is when she decided to join The army. This book had a lot of different Ideas before and after the war. A g n Yes was captured by the germans. She was first as a slave Labor for a german's farmer. Then She was sent to a concentration camp. Called RAV ENS V.R, it's me for QL.V In this camp, the woman were used as prostitute to a German soldier.. She seemed to survive in many different ways.And this must be really hard for me. Her daughter wanted to tell the story about her.Because it's pretty remarkable what she went through. After the war, Russians want the women To come back to russia so they actually forced To come back because they would Consider Tr AI TO. R.. She ended up in Canada.Somehow married to the male menu jack. This was a really long hard process but you pull it off. Things do not.
Go well for her in Canada.And you'll find that out as I read the book. This Book was amazing because your daughter did credible research and history about her mother during the warriors. Years. I learned a lot about what these Women who from U k r a I n e..

"See, everybody got, at that particular period of time, everybody have this terribly dark side. And that don't exclude anybody...

So said Rosa Butarin to her daughter Roxana, who according to this dual memoir and biography was in part driven to become a journalist to make sense of her mother's astonishing life.

The structure is odd, but it makes sense in context. The reader is advised to pay attention. At first, we get a glimpse of Rosa within her family in a tiny town in the Canadian prairie, and the occasional hints she would drop about her history. How did a woman born in Russia end up in Canada? Roxana kept asking questions, and her mother kept putting her off when Roxana dug too deeply.

There were plenty of "safe" stories that Rosa told people, then there were the rare bits that she confided to peers over the decades. But the whole story was not going to pass her lips--why would anyone want to know? The past is the past. It's no good knowing. It hurts to recollect. It's vile, what was done to people in that war. Why dredge it up again?

All of which are true. But the hints kept tantalizing Roxana, especially when she uncovered a document that stated that her mother had had four live births, but there were only three kids in her family. There was also a reference to another husband?

At the start, there's a lot more of Roxana than there is of Rosa, as the author sets up her drive to uncover the mysteries of her mother's life. Then she begins with the easy facts to find out, many of which Rosa supplied herself at various times over the years: her place of birth, what it was like to be a kid during the Lenin years, what it was like when Stalin took over...the start of World War II. And after that the story gets sketchy, with Rosa refusing to talk about the war years, until afterward when she managed to snag a Canadian husband and get out of Europe. After which she lived under at least four names, maybe more.

Rosa even agreed to some interviews, which Roxana taped, sometimes alone, and sometimes with other journalists present, as she herself was learning how to be a good journalist. Before her mother's death, she even sneaked in a trip to Germany to check on the farm where her mother said she had been employed to milk a cow during the last years of the war. She went completely unprepared, and learned nothing.

Finally Rosa passed away in her mid eighties, and at that point the biography takes over in the form of a mystery as Roxana uncovers scraps of truth--increasingly difficult. Many know something of the horrific cost of war, but don't realize that for so many after the last surrender of Germany, the nightmare was far from ended. For one thing, at the war'd end, millions of people had been displaced, driven to flee by oncoming soldiers, survivors of POW camps, death camps, organized slavery by the Germans, bombed=out cities, etc etc.

This was especially problematical for former Russian soldiers, whom Stalin wanted dead. And Rosa was a soldier; Stalin admitted women to the army, and Rosa, at eighteen (after three years of a horrifically violent marriage, and being left for dead at the side of a river by her husband twenty years older) signed up as a volunteer in order to escape that marriage.

The Germans had tried to destroy a lot of their very extensive record-keeping, especially in the death and labor camps. But the sheer volume was difficult to eradicate completely. Roxana Spicer put in time and effort tracking down primary evidence, along the way interviewing many survivors, and progeny of survivors. The stories of those who did not survive make extremely grim reading. The German treatment of the Russians during the invasion, and the subsequent handling of Russian prisoners, is especially grim. Though there are mountains of books about WW II, there is relatively little in English about the Russian experience in WW II--which is still being manipulated by Putin today to justify his war in the Ukraine.

What individual Russians did to survive during the war, especially when taken prisoners, and after the war, when their own government under Stalin declared them traitors and enemies of the people, overshadows the bulk of the book. We find out a good deal about Rosa's personal story, a sobering account of the shifts a young woman could be put to in order to survive. Roxana Spicer brings these people to life vividly, as well as the setting. It makes rough reading--I had to put the book down many times. But I always picked it up again, drawn on by Roxana Spicer's ability to bring these people to life.

I'm so glad you passed on your mother's story! No woman's story should slip into oblivion, especially one as amazing as your Mother's. You did a wonderful job passing on her secrets with taste, and care. I will never forget her story!

The memoir, The Traitor’s Daughter was very good. I hadn’t ever read about World War II from a Russian perspective. It was eye-opening regarding the Russian leaderships way of thinking. Cruel beyond measure. The author’s Mother, Rosa, survived several unthinkable situations, including Auschwitz. Roxana researched her Mother’s story for over thirty years. She was tormented with guilt about whether her brothers would want to know the story but most of all whether her Mother would be okay telling her story through this book. Roxana spent many years of her own life researching and writing her book, I hope she’s happy with her decision to publish her Mother’s fascinating story.

This was an extremely interesting read, made all the more so because it is in fact, true (truth CAN be stranger and more exciting than fiction). As I turned the pages, I was in awe of this incredible woman who fought the Nazis and outmaneuvered the dreaded KGB. Highly recommended for anyone who loves history, memoirs (although this isn't technically a memoir - you'll still love it), biographies, women's stories, and more.

This book was really amazing. It was all about our main character finding out the truth behind her mother's past. Roxana knew a bit about her mother there past only knowing that she was Russian it isn't until years later that she finds out the dark truth. Not only was Agnei a Russian in the time of the Nazis but she unfortunately she confess about her stay in Auschwitz. This was a very sad read as Roxana sees how strong her mother really was but also what made her that way. This book was inspiring to see how strong people really are in a time of terror. What I really liked about this book was it let the reader see the terror and pain that was not only brought in to the people during the Nazis' reign but also in the years after and all the way down the bloodlines. I didn't like all of the time jumping because made the plot a little hard to follow however I understand the benefits and I do think that it made the story complete. This was a very sad read given the subject but it was very powerful at the same time. While this was nothing like any WWII books I've read I liked every minute of this one just the same. Our author really connected the reader to the characters and you felt their pain and their successes. I couldn't put this book down as I had to see what was going to happen to our main character, even though given the subject of the story I had a hunch. I highly recommend this book but if you don't want to be gutted emotionally then I would pass. Great read and I can't wait to see this book in print. If you are a WWII buff or love historical novels then this is the book for you. Check it out because you won't be disappointed and you will want to be part of the discussion that is bound to happen when this book hits the printer.

Wow. The author's mom was a mystery to her daughter...wouldn't discuss much of her past, but clearly a lot there. Like many involved in WWII conflict, the mom played her cards close to her vest. The author spent years sleuthing and boy, did she find out amazing and difficult details. A gripping read. Thoroughly enjoyed.

this is such a beautifully written book! thank you netgalley and co
this is such an interesting take on a woman’s very full life and also a nice nod to how women are always paying for wars that men start
shout out to the author honestly this is so great!

Roxana Spicer grew up hearing the Red Army choir. She always knew that her mother was Russian, but that was all she knew. As she grew up and became an investigative report, she came back to her mother time and time again to try to figure out the secrets behind her mom's stories. What she learns will change the way she looks at her mom forever.

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley.
I went to Russia for spring break one year in high school after taking a Soviet Studies class and I was really blown away by the differences between Russia and the USA. Since then things related to Russia do catch my attention such as this book.
Roxana Spicer as a journalist and as a daughter, wanted to get closer to her mother and find out about her past. This is a long book, but well worth the read as Ms. Spicer shares her journey to find out more about her mother's past both from her mother (and after her mother passed away) through other sources and relatives.
I read a lot of WWII historical fiction, but I had not come across this type of information about the Soviet Union repatriating their citizens after the war ended, whether the Russian-born people wanted to go or not. A lot of the Russians were executed or put in gulags after returning to Russia because they were considered enemies of the state even if they had been in German POW camps. This book is horrifying in a lot of ways about how the Russians treated/treat their own people, but is balanced by the love within the family for Rosa even after everything she had been through. If you have any interest in WWII, or even Russia's history in light of their present day invasion of Ukraine, this is an excellent book to read.

This book covers an important slice of twentieth-century Soviet history beginning with the reign of Czar Nicholas II.

Agnei Rosa Nicolaievna Butorina was from Chusovoy, Russia, a town in the Ural Mountains and the mother of the author.

She didn’t want her past dug up but after a tearful reunion with her family and friends in Russia fifty years after she left, accompanied by Roxana Spicer, her journalist daughter, Agnei Rosa was more willing to talk about the war. Afterward, her daughter decided to research her mother’s history which included a stay in Auschwitz concentration camp and time as a slave for the Germans.

Agnei’s life was spared through her own cunning, her ability to speak German and her marriage during wartime to a sensible Canadian.

This well-researched book, that is at times enthralling, is a moving story and one worth reading.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Fascinating and interesting read. I have always wondered how people survive throughout their struggles and hardships and how they continue on while still living their lives. This book showed me how one family did just that and it was so compelling.

This book was very hard to follow. It kept jumping around so much I’m not sure where or when the author was at in her story line most of the time. I couldn’t tell where she was or when she was. Sometimes she was back to when her mother was alive talking to her or she was jumping around to her many trips to where she thought her mother had been while she was captured by Hitler’s men.

It just was very confusing and hard to follow. There were some interesting facts in this book that’s why I gave it four stars. Otherwise it was a very confusing read and very hard to follow.