Beyond Seven Forests

In this slim yet dense historical survival novel, told via nonlinear chronology, McCrina (I’ll Tell You No Lies) zooms in on Poland during WWI, when the country was on the verge of becoming an independent nation for the first time since 1795. Eighteen-year-old Countess Renata, a military doctor’s assistant in service of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, lost her family to the war and lives alone in their ravaged estate near the city of Lemberg. Returning from work one snowy evening, she finds two apparent deserters from the Russian army occupying her house. Failing to save one soldier from gangrene and trapped in the estate by what has become a formidable blizzard, Renia and the remaining soldier must rely on each other to survive. Renia’s defense testimony in a military tribunal—she’s been charged as a traitor for harboring an enemy soldier—alternates with intermittent sections that reveal earlier events. First-person narration describes Renia’s snowbound days battling hypothermia and recalls the horrors she experienced throughout wartime. It’s a complex narrative rendered in the protagonist’s measured voice and filled with references to Polish class distinctions and history. Includes a map and historical note. Ages 14–up. (Feb.)