The Harvest of Her Life’s Summer
Veronica Gventsadze
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Wild Thorn Publishing
Date of Publication: August 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-948223-08-9
ASIN: B07VZYSKWB
Number of pages: 444
Word Count: 123000
Cover Artist: Glendon Haddix (Streetlight Graphics)
Tagline: “A bittersweet tale from Russia, with love.”
Book Description:
Alexandra Baumann, a Russian immigrant in Canada, learns a painful secret her mother has kept for thirty years. Shortly before the family emigrated from the Soviet Union, Alexandra's father generated groundbreaking research that should have secured him fame and fortune but was appropriated by his boss. Alexandra’s single-minded drive to write Papa’s story threatens her prospects of romance and her relationship with Grace, her oldest friend. Now, Alexandra must bring down her guard if she wants happiness and the truth about what brought her family to theNew World.
Excerpt
Alexandra put ona denim jacket and headed for the little mall with a sign for sushi. She placedher order for sashimi, miso soup, and a dragon roll, and sat listening tolulling music and the burbling of water in a tank that housed large decorativecarps. Back at home she decided she was too hungry to assemble the diningtable. She arranged her lunch on the countertop and pulled up a barstool,sitting sidesaddle like a lady on horseback. Look, Mama. See how gracefully I’mperched on this stool. And a fat lot of good it’s doing me. You really thinkmen care for these things?
After lunch she worked as fast asshe could, populating the condo with her trinkets, her hexes againstdesolation.
Alexandra heard beeping and openedher eyes to a strange room that contained nothing but a bed. She was lying onit, but instead of bedding there was a sleeping bag in which she was cocooned.Her mind shuffled the information with puzzled haste and produced the answer.This was her own bedroom. She’d tired herself out and had taken a nap, and nowshe’d woken up for the first time in her new home. That was fine, she toldherself. She’d bought the place, and it was hers to fall asleep in.
Alexandra realized what had wokenher up: the salvo of optimistic little beeps proclaiming the end of the dryingcycle. She’d washed a load of laundry and had put it in the dryer before takingher nap. The idea was to make sure the appliances were working properly firstthing after moving in. She got up and went to unload the dryer before theclothes cooled into a crumpled heap. She folded them on the bathroom counter,which was still empty except for a toothbrush, mug, and a vial of liquidfoundation. The mug was from the Vancouver Aquarium, with a green tree frogperched on the handle, a tribute to her love of frogs and toads. It was a giftfrom a friend in Thunder Bay, given long before she suspected she would seeVancouver one day. At the time, her mental image of Vancouver Island was agreen lawn the size of a golf course, an invigorating swim’s distance from themainland. She didn’t realize until much later that the island was the size ofone or two European countries, reachable only by passage on a ferry or by airtravel.
The bottle of Christian Dior liquidfoundation wasn’t cheap, but was well worth the price. She’d purchased herfirst vial back in Toronto and had wondered where she’d be when it ran out. Itlasted two years and took her to the West Coast and to her first job out ofpharmacy college. This was her second vial, now half-finished. She used it muchmore often now that she needed to look professional. She had long hair thecolor of ripe wheat, gray eyes behind glasses that were supposed to be trendybut made her look like a schoolgirl, and the wide potato nose of her peasantancestors. She liked her nose for defying Mama’s aristocratic pretensions.
Stretching, shelooked around at her new bathroom. Such a waste. The claw-foot tub was clearlythe focal point of the room, but Alexandra had never liked taking baths,greatly preferring showers. Taking a bath was just soaking in bits of your owndead skin. Disgusting. It seemed inappropriate to maintain such intimatecontact with what used to be you. But people did it all the time and thought
nothing of it, glamorous people like movie stars, so maybe Alexandra couldlearn, too.
It occurred to Alexandra that she was now thesame age as her mother was when they first came to Canada. Mama was then a newimmigrant with a gainfully employed husband, a ten-year-old daughter who wouldgrow up in this new land, and a degree in Russian history that gave herprecious few prospects for a job. By now they’d all acquired Canadiancitizenship, but Mama’s soul would remain Russian. Alexandra was single, withno boyfriend let alone a husband, no great urge to get married at all, but witha pragmatic degree in a pragmatic profession that assured her a good living.Her life was streamlined to the point of minimalism, and—she wanted tobelieve—free from her ancestors’ hang ups that brought happiness to no one.
She finished folding the laundry asthe sun came out and promised quiet evening light. The North Vancouver condohad a miniature yard that had looked like a park in the realtor’s photos.Alexandra knew well that such photos conjure up distance and depth, and didn’tbegrudge the yard its actual petiteness. With this acquisition she was now acomplete adult, with a mortgage to prove it. She unfolded a deck chair underthe boughs of a cedar, leaving the screen door open for Tassy. Maybe Mama wasright, and the cat really would appreciate a chance to walk about. But whenTassy in her obligate curiosity crossed the threshold, she was frightened bythe sky, by the absence of a ceiling to this new room she’d entered, and shebolted back inside. It’s too late for her, Alexandra thought with relief and atinge of guilt. The yard didn’t belong to Alexandra, it was strata lot, butthat made little difference. The air, redolent with the sweet perfume of thecedars, was hers to enjoy, and the brilliance of young grass in late May wasthe same in this little yard as on the lawns of overpriced mansions in West
Vancouver.
About the Author:
Veronica Gventsadze worked as a conference interpreter and a university professor of philosophy before training for her current profession of veterinarian. Her fiction is inspired by lessons learned from nature as well as a childhood of shuttling between Soviet Russia and the free world.
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