The Darker Shades of Night

By Mr. Burt Freiman

THE STORY: Rivka Ganuke, barely surviving her birth, was thrust into a conflicted world at the onset of the 20th century, a world of want, poverty and danger, a misogynistic world which had forever deprived women of equality. She rebelled at the obligation to fulfill age-old roles steeped in superstition and was denied the right to continue her education despite her brilliant mind. Surviving a rape attempt and a vicious pogrom, she escaped her village and traveled alone, seeking refuge in the home of her successful uncle. She soon became aware of his repressed passions and a secret, double life. This led to her unwilling inclusion and the start of a journey which would change the course of history. Eventually won over to her uncle''s cause, she fell in love with its leader. Steeped in spy-craft, she undertook a danger filled journey which required every ounce of her courage and intellect. She "graduates" to become a spy in the palace of the Tsar of Russia, where she is befriended by the princess Anastasia and is relentlessly pursued and abused by the monk, Rasputin. Trusted by the royal family, she is forced to become a witness to, and a participant in, their execution and burial. The tale concludes in modern times with post Soviet Russia''s effort prove the deaths of the royal family to offset the renewed devotion to the royals by the Russian Orthodox church. Rivka is the only remaining survivor among those who knew the truth. Part biography, part researched, historical fiction, this novel has been judged a great read by a variety of professional editors. INDEPENDENT EDITORS'' COMMENTS: *Amazing. Powerful. Gripping. Heart stopping. *Exceptionally well written. *I''m going to need PTSD therapy from reading this. ''*Couldn''t stop thinking about it. *The way it gets into the readers consciousness is testament to the writing and the story. *The Darkside of man. Revenge, acrimony, divisiveness. *Political parallels to now and the 1918 flu pandemic. *This book is incredibly well paced and plotted. *Rewarding. Realistic dialogue. THE BACKGROUND: It wasn''t until it was well into my adulthood that I realized one of my great aunts was a likely revolutionary and spy involved in the establishment of the Soviet state. I knew nothing of this until my father handed me letters and pages written by one of his aunts which he was given when he left the shtetl of Ostropol to migrate to America. He was not sure which of his paternal aunts was described, for all identifying information had been crudely redacted. I know her surname was Ganuke, my father''s surname, which was changed after he arrived in the U.S. In the minds of my family, this Marxist connection was secret information, a threat to all of them. I attempted a reconstruction of what had happened. However, since every family member who had remained in Europe was murdered in the Holocaust, I had no direct sources. I did careful research, accumulating hundreds of footnotes. Too many lies and much subterfuge surrounding the prominent actors of the Russian revolution were purposely misleading. They were constantly adopting and changing pseudonyms, using doubles and creating false events in order to confuse their enemies. Because there were gaps in the papers, some of the information is historically accurate fiction. This provided an opportunity to have events in the life of the protagonist serve as a metaphor for what has been suffered by women living under conditions of religious and secular misogyny for centuries. My parents and their siblings told endless stories about their lives which, to me, became my version of tales by the Brothers Grimm. However, my family''s horror stories, though indeed grim, were not fairy tales. This is the story of Rivka Ganuke''s life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B09M4THKTY
• ISBN13: 9798498082172
• Release Date: November 2021
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 349 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"