The seeds of romance set in a brutal war
Push Me Off The Cliff, by Marina Osipova, is not your usual wartime romance story. Set in Russia, during and after WW II and the Nazi invasion of the Motherland, two people, Maria and Armen, are drawn together by circumstance, not bonds of love. Maria, a communications specialist during the war, and Armen, a canine trainer for military dogs, cross paths early in the war. There is no romance, in fact, Armen dislikes Maria, and Maria knows him only through her friend, whom he has a brief wartime romance with. In the wake of a battle, Armen is left legless and homeless, a veteran and hero, but nonetheless, destitute. After the war, while commuting on a train, Maria hears someone singing, a voice she recognizes from her past, the voice of Armen. Driven by a sense of compassion and sheer kindness, she tries to find him. Her determination is not compelled by love for him, but by empathy, and when their roads do cross again, the story that unfolds is both tragic and heartwarming. Marina Osipova does an excellent job of portraying the brutality of the Nazi invasion on Russia, the often time less-told story. Recommended for lovers of war, Russian historical fiction, and romance.
About Marina Osipova
Marina Osipova was born in East Germany into a military family and grew up in Russia where she graduated from the Moscow State Institute of History and Archives. She also has a diploma as a German language translator from the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Languages. In Russia, she worked first in a scientific-technical institute as a translator then in a Government Ministry in the office of international relations, later for some Austrian firms. For seventeen years, she lived in the United States where she worked in a law firm. Eventually, she found her home in Austria. She is an award-winning author and a member of the Historical Novel Society.
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