Elizabeth Kiem Releases Debut Book, 'Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy'

Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy puts a modern twist on classic spy fiction, highlighting the culture shock between the USSR and the U.S. that would come to define a war "so cold it exists mostly in space or the hockey arena"-from a debut author who lived it herself.

Marina is born of privilege. Her mother, Sveta, is the Soviet Union's prima ballerina: an international star handpicked by the regime. But Sveta is afflicted with a mysterious second sight and becomes obsessed with exposing a horrific state secret. Then she disappears.

Fearing for their lives, Marina and her father defect to Brooklyn. Marina struggles to reestablish herself as a dancer at Juilliard. But her enigmatic partner, Sergei, makes concentration almost impossible, as does the fact that Marina shares her mother's "gift," and has a vision of her father's murder at the hands of the Russian crooks and con artists she thought they'd left behind.

Now Marina must navigate the web of intrigue surrounding her mother's disappearance, her ability, and exactly whom she can-and can't-trust.

Elizabeth Kiem (in Russian, she is Elizaveta Ivanovna) studied Russian language and literature at Columbia University and writes novels, essays, reports, reviews, grocery lists and more.? ??She has lived in Brooklyn for more than 15 years, and before that she lived in Moscow as it entered a new era, immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Besides Brooklyn and Moscow, her favorite places are Alaska (where she was born), Istanbul (where she understood that all great cities straddle the water), and Haiti (where life itself straddles the water). Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy is her first novel.

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