Keep The Light Burning

The Soldier’s Child by Tetyana Denford is a powerful and moving historical novel that I just could not put down.

The novel spans many years, beginning just after the end of World War I. We travel across continents from Ukraine to America as we follow the members of one family.

We witness the terrible heartaches as the Soviets inflict a reign of terror. Many innocents were killed or sent to gulags. The people of the Ukraine looked to the Nazis for a better life which shows just how badly the Soviets treated them. Incidentally, my uncle was born in 1922 in Ukraine and he said that his family preferred the Nazis to falling into Soviet hands.

Unmarried mothers were frowned upon. We witness a mother’s sacrifice and also her love that will never die. “Losing the ones we love are sometimes the sacrifices we make to keep them alive.” We do what we can for our children, practicing sacrificial love.

A poor upbringing means a character longs for home. “Home was a dream he’d had his whole life.” Home is not found in bricks and mortar but in people. “He [father] smelled of home.”