Content levels
Trigger warnings
Hero archetypes
Heroine archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Tropes
Themes
Synopsis
What price is too high for survival? Petrograd, 1917. Eighteen-year-old Valentina Kalinin's life of aristocratic privilege is shattered in an instant when Bolshevik rebels storm her home. Her father is murdered before her eyes, her beloved fiancé Alexei falls to a revolutionary's bayonet, and Valentina barely escapes to England with her life. Stranded in a foreign country with no money or support, salvation arrives in the form of a charming cousin, Dmitri, who offers her sanctuary in his Belgravia mansion. Valentina believes her nightmare is over, until she realizes that Dmitri's generosity comes at a horrifying price... Present day. When archaeologist Quinn Allenby discovers a skeleton sealed behind a wardrobe in a London house, she expects another routine investigation. But the moment she touches a delicate Fabergé necklace, Quinn is thrust into Valentina's world of revolution and betrayal. As Quinn pieces together the Russian girl's desperate story while juggling new motherhood, she realizes that exposing the truth about the mysterious skeleton will have devastating consequences for her own future... Fans of Diana Gabaldon, Barbara Erskine, and Susanna Kearsley will devour this gripping story of survival, betrayal, and the dangerous lengths we go to protect those we love.
Tags
The Unseen: content & age rating
Intended for adult readers (18+).
This historical time-slip romance contains graphic depictions of revolutionary violence including murder of family members, implied sexual coercion/captivity, and wartime trauma. The dual timeline structure explores survival during the Bolshevik Revolution and its modern consequences.
What to know going in
This book has strong violence, mild sexual content, and mild language. Content notes include graphic violence, murder, captivity, death of parent, and death of partner (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
Adult readers who love historical mysteries will be captivated by the dual timelines connecting a Russian refugee's desperate survival to a modern archaeologist's life-changing discovery.