The Whisper of Stars

Katya Efremova, a 19-year-old anarchist, has spent ten months imprisoned in a covert government laboratory. When an escape attempt goes terribly wrong, she's transferred to a new prison colony on Solovetsky Island in the White Sea.There she finds a clue from her murdered mother: Listen to the whisper of stars.
Aristocrat Dima Danilov knows he'll never leave Solovetsky Island alive. His dreams of Katya before they ever met are baffling to him - an anarchist and an aristocrat could never be together. But when he finds a 250-year-old diary written by his ancestor - a first-person account of Stenka Razin's rebellion, which Katya's mother was investigating before her death - the two of them reluctantly agree to work together.
Natasha Bobrinskaya is a rogue witch. When she's offered her freedom in exchange for spying on Katya and Dima, she jumps at the chance, though she has her own reasons for wanting to solve the mystery surrounding Katya's mother's death.
The three prisoners must join forces to uncover the secret woven into the mysterious labyrinths of the Solovetsky Archipelago. But they're not the only ones searching for the island's legendary power...

Cristin Williams was born to Russian-English translators working for the US military. She now lives in Belgium with her Flemish husband and four daughters. In 2010, she won the Paul Gillette award for historical fiction.