The Red Scarf by Kate Furnivall

An interesting read. Not as good as the Russian Concubine, but still good. I've read allot of fiction based during the rise of communism in China, so this book was interesting in that respect. It takes place in the Ural mountains and in the Siberian labor camps. The parallels to Chinese communism is close, but of course the Russians did it first. The forced labor of the former aristocratic class, the spying on neighbors, the starvation of the farmers, children so indoctrinated they'll snitch on their own parents; all the things that happened in Russia also happened in China. So, an interesting back drop to a fairly interesting story.

The characters were fairly well developed by the end of the book, and the women where survivor-strong. The author had you rooting for a happy ending. There's a surprising case of mistaken identity, but more surprising to me was the mystical gypsy stuff going on, and the fact the the main character finds out she's the 7th daughter of a 7th daughter - totally cool. I wasn't expecting anything as cool as that. To be totally hones, it almost seems like the author may have added it because the story was foundering, but it worked for me; I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff.

About the Book:

Davinsky Labor Camp, Siberia, 1933: Only two things in this wretched place keep Sofia from giving up hope: the prospect of freedom, and the stories told by her friend and fellow prisoner Anna, of a charmed childhood in Petrograd, and her fervent girlhood love for a passionate revolutionary named Vasily.

After a perilous escape, Sofia endures months of desolation and hardship. But, clinging to a promise she made to Anna, she subsists on the belief that someday she will track down Vasily. In a remote village, she’s nursed back to health by a Gypsy family, and there she finds more than refuge—she also finds Mikhail Pashin, who, her heart tells her, is Vasily in disguise. He’s everything she has ever wanted—but he belongs to Anna.

After coming this far, Sofia is tantalizingly close to freedom, family—even a future. All that stands in her way is the secret past that could endanger everything she has come to hold dear…