Mother Country A Novel by Irina Reyn St. Martin's Press

This is a beautifully written and insightful glimpse into the life of an Eastern European migrant in America and class distinction in New York.  Deeply-layered, it compares many different stratas of society, including the Ukrainians and Russians in America and it also compares life in Ukraine with modern life in the USA. Irina Reyn captures all this through her heroine Nadia's eyes, showing us a different world.

Nadia has a hard life in a seedy part of Brooklyn, struggling with two jobs. She works as a nanny for ambitious Regina and cares for an annoying old man at night, so that she can eventually bring her diabetic daughter to America from war-torn Ukraine.  She doesn't have many friends, isn't happy with her life, and she has a fraught relationship with her daughter Larisska, because she left her in war-torn Ukraine. The horrors of the war came suddenly, and the emptiness and snobbishness of life in New York doesn't compare favourably with the community spirit and the old beauty of Rubizhne. But Nadia has a steel will and a strong spirit. Will these be enough to help her cope with her new life?

This is a haunting story, well-worth reading. I highly recommend it.

I received this free ebook from Net Galley in return for an honest review.