The Snow Hare

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What to expect

An unforgettable love story set in Siberia during the Second World War and of living with impossible choices.

Lena knows she hasn't got long left. While a nurse administers morphine to ease her pain, she relives her life. Growing up in a small town in Poland, she was an earnest young girl determined to become a doctor who found her dreams put on hold as she became the reluctant wife of an army officer and then again by becoming a mother, in which she finds a fierce and surprising joy.

As war approaches, she returns home. But when Russia invades her middle-class family are deemed Enemies of the State and sent to the work camp in Siberia. It is in the endless forest, where, despite the bitter cold, the biting hunger and the back-breaking work, Lena learns that it is possible to fall in love at the edge of the world and the edge of life.

When her lover, Grigori, falls ill she takes the decision to use the precious antibiotics she was given in Poland, to save him. It means that when her daughter becomes sick, she is unable to save her. It's a decision that will continue to haunt her after the war, even as she builds a tentative new life, first in Wales, then England.

Exploring marriage, motherhood, and our incredible capacity for cultivating hope in the darkest times, The Snow Hare is the unforgettable story of a woman who dares to love and to dream in the face of impossible odds, and of the peace we each must make with our choices, even long after the years have gone by.

(P) 2023 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critics Review

'Wonderful . . . a vivid and endearing picture of family life'
The Times
Written in richly impressive prose, The Snow Hare celebrates the human ability to survive in even the worst circumstances
Sunday Times
Heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure, this is an exquisite, compelling study of survival and emotional resilience
Daily Mail
Paula Lichtarowicz's profound and beautifully written third novel brings her back to her roots . . . [she] mesmerises us with the honesty of her characterisations and the light-handedness with which she treats the expression of those characters' feelings
Sunday Independent Review
The Snow Hare is a well-written, compelling account of a devastating period of history, and one which provides a different perspective to the usual Nazi-focused World War II novel of survival
Business Post
I loved this book, though it left a huge crack in my heart. A beautifully written, enthralling story of an unforgettable family caught up in a conflict that takes them all the way to a Siberian work camp. The main character, Lena, is determined and compelling, and the novel a brilliant study of what it means to survive both the best and worst of times
JOANNA QUINN, author of The Whalebone Theatre
Love and loss, and courage and compassion, collide in this brilliantly told story of survival against the odds. Based on the true story of her grandmother, Paula Lichtarowicz's exquisite novel takes readers on a family journey full of passion, longing, regret, and eventual acceptance of choices made a lifetime ago. In these riveting, heartfelt, and brutally honest pages, Lena keeps a lifetime of secrets and dreams from her loved ones, but never allows them to stop her from loving in return
Heather Morris, New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Lichtarowicz is a writer of great talent, with the ability to portray hardship and grief shot through with humour and hope. The gorgeous prose, compelling storyline, and emotional depth ensure that The Snow Hare remains in the reader's mind long after the last page
Frances Liardet, New York Times bestselling author of We Must Be Brave
The Snow Hare by Paula Lichtarowicz is an extraordinary novel of fate, hope, love and determination. Lichtarowicz' beautifully drawn story, set against a backdrop of real historical events, is every bit as heart-wrenching as it is inspiring. The Snow Hare brings the past to life in a vivid, evocative way - reminding us that history echoes through time, and hope can sustain us even through the most difficult of circumstances. This is one of the finest historical fiction novels I've read in years
Kelly Rimmer, New York Times bestselling author of The Warsaw Orphan

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