Once Upon the River Love: A Novel

In the immense virgin pine forests of Siberia, where the snows of winter are vast and endless, sits the little village of Svetlaya. Once, the village had been larger, more prosperous, but time and the pendulum of history had reduced it by the 1970s to no more than a cluster of izbas.

But for three young men—the handsome young Alyosha, the crippled Utkin, and the older, dashing Samurai—little is needed to construct their own special universe. Despite the harshness of the environment and their...