‘A lovely, funny, sad and informative book… It almost reads like a Wes Anderson film’ —Dolly Alderton, author of international bestseller Everything I Know About Love

‘[A] totally original and wonderful novella’ —Nikki Bedi, host of The Arts Hour, BBC World Service

‘This stunning historical novella… is both tense and atmospheric’ —Mslexia

‘A powerful, sophisticated, and emotional delve into Soviet-era Romania through the eyes and heart of a young woman… an exciting plot-driven read that offers a thoughtful, introspective look into a woman reaching maturity under a government that isn’t built for girls who ask questions’ —Independent Book Review

‘The prose is tight, witty, vivid and atmospheric… Every word on the page pulls its weight’ —Litro

‘A story to savour, to smile at, to rage against and to weep over’ —Zoe Gilbert, author of Folk

‘Sophie van Llewyn’s stunning debut novella shows us there is no dystopian fiction as frightening as that which draws on history’ —Christina Dalcher, author of VOX

‘This is an impressive debut in the tradition of Eastern European Absurdist fiction’ —Jude Higgins, Bath Flash Fiction Award organiser

‘Sophie van Llewyn has brought light into an era which cast a long shadow’ —Joanna Campbell, author of When Planets Slip Their Tracks

‘The uncertainties of life and love, and the insatiable quest for freedom – bottled neatly in a set of stories that captivate and enchant’ —Michelle Elvy, coordinator of New Zealand’s Flash Fiction Day and Bath Flash Fiction Award judge

‘A tour de force, a harrowing and ultimately triumphant story, a must-read by a masterful writer’ —Christopher Allen, author of Other Household Toxins

‘A masterful blend of the political and the personal, the magical and the mundane, the historical and the hyperbolic’            —Ingrid Jendrzejewski, Editor-in-Chief, FlashBack Fiction

‘A dizzying, daring window on life in Ceausescu’s Romania’ —Stephanie Hutton, author of Three Sisters of Stone

‘A lucid and powerfully affecting story’ —Helen Rye, winner of the Bath Flash Fiction Award