Nina's graduate program at Moscow University isn't exactly cheap. So when she is offered work translating for Spanish families looking to adopt orphans from the provincial town of Rogozhin, she quickly agrees. Besides the much-needed money it brings, the job is a great opportunity for Nina to use her education to help people in hardship.
But soon she finds that nothing is as it seems. By the time Nina realizes that all too often the business of international adoption is not a humanitarian enterprise, she's in too deep. Will she be able to navigate a world of exploitation and political corruption in order to help the children? Or should she return to the much simpler world of academia and leave the orphans behind?
Wake in Winter is a captivating story of one woman's choice in the face of a shattering discovery.
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These events actually happened.
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(Amazon Crossing, 1 November 2016, ebook, 370 pages, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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This was my Amazon First Reads choice in October 2016 but I didn't get a chance to read it at the time. I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this book because I disliked Nina for most of it. I found it hard to feel any sympathy as she gets involved in really dodgy adoption schemes, taking wads of money and doing whatever she is told including false translations and forgery. She just came across a money-obsessed, materialistic person. But I found this book compelling nevertheless and couldn't stop reading it. I started to warn to Nina who is clearly out of her depth. I really enjoyed Wake in Winter.
