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Zoya Septet #3
Beautiful skin
Once upon a time there was a war and Andrew Chornavka and his family were caught up in its fires.
Love, betrayal, sacrifice, heroism, savagery, things amazing and miraculous - it was all part of his world, and the world of his brothers and sisters, as armies clashed and battles raged in the skies and on the ground. Yet the wars of the heart were no less fiery and painful, and the hunt to find hope and meaning within nations ripped apart by conflict, just as desperate as the struggle to survive.
America, Canada, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Germany and Berlin are the backdrop to a powerful drama of the human soul, to a story of a love that proved impossible to stop, a war that proved impossible to win and a faith that proved impossible to break.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 1, 2017
4 people are currently reading
864 people want to read
About the author
Murray Pura
148 books772 followersreader, writer, author, free thinker
books published in 2023
KINGFISHER CROSS
NEVENA IN LOVE
CLARA RAVEN
UNDER THE STONES
available on Amazon, B&N, Indigo, etc.
listed for Best Series of the Year Award 2023
Hemingway Award 2022 Seattle
Word Guild Award 2022, 2012 Toronto
books published in 2023
KINGFISHER CROSS
NEVENA IN LOVE
CLARA RAVEN
UNDER THE STONES
available on Amazon, B&N, Indigo, etc.
listed for Best Series of the Year Award 2023
Hemingway Award 2022 Seattle
Word Guild Award 2022, 2012 Toronto
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 13, 2023
🔥🔥 Brick buildings burned like candles whenever the sun disappeared. A thousand flames, no, more than a thousand, for trucks burned, and cars, German and Russian tanks, all night, night after night, they burned like stars that had fallen on Berlin. And people burned too - shopkeepers, wine merchants, bankers, lawyers, soldiers, women, men, children - sometimes they burned the brightest 🔥
🔥🔥 #3 in a nine book series based on my family’s tragic and tumultuous history in Europe 🔥
🔥🔥 #3 in a nine book series based on my family’s tragic and tumultuous history in Europe 🔥
March 30, 2023
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Not all heroes where capes, just as all saints don’t wear haloes… And Zoya, is far from a saint, except to a Church desperate for heroes to pin the miracles of a devastating war on and a conquered people needing a saint to pray to… a brilliant and poignant look at sinners and saints after the fog of war…
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Brick buildings burned like candles whenever the sun disappeared. A thousand flames, no, more than a thousand, for trucks burned, and cars, and German and Russian tanks, all night, night after night, they burned like stars that had fallen on Berlin. And people burned too – shopkeepers, wine merchants, bankers, lawyers, soldiers, women, men, children – sometimes they burned the brightest.
What a line to begin a novel of love and war, bloodshed and sacrifice, life and death, darkness and light.
Beautiful Skin is a tour de force. There just isn’t any other way to describe it. To think that the author who wrote so realistically about the horrors of World War II is the same man who once wrote eloquent Amish romances.
What more can I say that I haven’t said before? The only word that comes to mind again and again is visceral. This story is gut-wrenching. It’s bold. It’s realistic. It saddens the soul. But, it soars with love and family connections and duty to one’s country and people.
Of course, this is a work of fiction, but it realistic to the fact that many of the Ukrainian people were forced to side with the Germans, the lesser of two evils, in order to find some hope for a free and independent Ukraine and fight against the genocide of Stalin and his Soviet regime that threatened their very existence.
When I read a novel like this that dares to show the horrors and reality of war without resorting to glossing over it, it breaks your heart, but it also touches the soul. How can such a realistic story touch the soul? With its deep and abiding connection to those things I mentioned above: love and life and sacrifice and light amid a suffocating darkness.
Andrii Chornachav continues his tale where The Whitebirds of Morning left off—with the members of his family being drawn into Germany toward the end of the war with the Soviets bearing down on them and Nazi Berlin. Ukrainians caught between two evils, fighting a war to preserve themselves and their people while a darkness falls over their world. It is a story of survival… and a long-sought redemption by people who once loved God, lost Him, and only begin to find Him again, though perhaps not in the way they once knew Him. It is a story of tarnished hope. There is much bloodshed and loss. There is life and death and rebirth.
And Zoya? What became of her? After all, remember where this series began—with the Church determined to make Andrii’s sister Zoya a saint. This book and this series is summed up quite nicely in one quote—but be forewarned, while it may be the essence of the novels, it is by no means the whole of the story!
“Your baby sister Zoya. Did you see nothing out of the ordinary during a lifetime with her?”
I did not know how to respond for several moments. “Out of the ordinary? I suppose I did. But if anything makes her a fit candidate for sainthood it is the ordinary things of her life, a beautiful and heavenly ordinariness that she shared with her older sister Yuzunia, and with my wife ...”
They waved off my comments. “Zo is the saint. She was a living, breathing angel of God who exemplified the holy in all she said and did. No other person you knew or she knew came close to matching her faith and godliness.”
“If you know so much and are sure of so much why did you come to me?” I asked, an edge creeping into my voice.
“You are her brother, the only one of her immediate family still alive. Naturally we want your personal testimony. You must have seen all sorts of wonders in your household and during your years in Russia and Ukraine. Such a woman of peace! What stories you must have to tell.”
Oh yes, what a story Andrii Chornakav has to tell!
Not all heroes where capes, just as all saints don’t wear haloes… And Zoya, is far from a saint, except to a Church desperate for heroes to pin the miracles of a devastating war on and a conquered people needing a saint to pray to… a brilliant and poignant look at sinners and saints after the fog of war…
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Brick buildings burned like candles whenever the sun disappeared. A thousand flames, no, more than a thousand, for trucks burned, and cars, and German and Russian tanks, all night, night after night, they burned like stars that had fallen on Berlin. And people burned too – shopkeepers, wine merchants, bankers, lawyers, soldiers, women, men, children – sometimes they burned the brightest.
What a line to begin a novel of love and war, bloodshed and sacrifice, life and death, darkness and light.
Beautiful Skin is a tour de force. There just isn’t any other way to describe it. To think that the author who wrote so realistically about the horrors of World War II is the same man who once wrote eloquent Amish romances.
What more can I say that I haven’t said before? The only word that comes to mind again and again is visceral. This story is gut-wrenching. It’s bold. It’s realistic. It saddens the soul. But, it soars with love and family connections and duty to one’s country and people.
Of course, this is a work of fiction, but it realistic to the fact that many of the Ukrainian people were forced to side with the Germans, the lesser of two evils, in order to find some hope for a free and independent Ukraine and fight against the genocide of Stalin and his Soviet regime that threatened their very existence.
When I read a novel like this that dares to show the horrors and reality of war without resorting to glossing over it, it breaks your heart, but it also touches the soul. How can such a realistic story touch the soul? With its deep and abiding connection to those things I mentioned above: love and life and sacrifice and light amid a suffocating darkness.
Andrii Chornachav continues his tale where The Whitebirds of Morning left off—with the members of his family being drawn into Germany toward the end of the war with the Soviets bearing down on them and Nazi Berlin. Ukrainians caught between two evils, fighting a war to preserve themselves and their people while a darkness falls over their world. It is a story of survival… and a long-sought redemption by people who once loved God, lost Him, and only begin to find Him again, though perhaps not in the way they once knew Him. It is a story of tarnished hope. There is much bloodshed and loss. There is life and death and rebirth.
And Zoya? What became of her? After all, remember where this series began—with the Church determined to make Andrii’s sister Zoya a saint. This book and this series is summed up quite nicely in one quote—but be forewarned, while it may be the essence of the novels, it is by no means the whole of the story!
“Your baby sister Zoya. Did you see nothing out of the ordinary during a lifetime with her?”
I did not know how to respond for several moments. “Out of the ordinary? I suppose I did. But if anything makes her a fit candidate for sainthood it is the ordinary things of her life, a beautiful and heavenly ordinariness that she shared with her older sister Yuzunia, and with my wife ...”
They waved off my comments. “Zo is the saint. She was a living, breathing angel of God who exemplified the holy in all she said and did. No other person you knew or she knew came close to matching her faith and godliness.”
“If you know so much and are sure of so much why did you come to me?” I asked, an edge creeping into my voice.
“You are her brother, the only one of her immediate family still alive. Naturally we want your personal testimony. You must have seen all sorts of wonders in your household and during your years in Russia and Ukraine. Such a woman of peace! What stories you must have to tell.”
Oh yes, what a story Andrii Chornakav has to tell!
December 22, 2017
Reviewed for Readers' Favorite
Murray Pura’s Beautiful Skin is a romance novel that has many layers to it. Set in the Second World War between Ukraine and Germany, it is centered around its main character Andrew Chornavka, with his brothers and sisters playing minor characters. The story wends its way from family to romance, with war always going on in the background; it is its own character as much as Andrew Chornavka plays his role. The style of writing is effective, and it immediately pulls you into that of a war-torn family. Its pace is comparable to a long and winding road, full of stops along the way that you don’t see coming, from romantic love interests to other shocks that crop up.
Beautiful Skin by author Murray Pura made me feel as if I had been in a war; you can almost smell the fumes coming up off the pages. It’s so life-like and realistic that you have a more in-depth appreciation for what family members and friends have experienced in battle. Although, one thing I will say, that if you are expecting the kind of romance novel that usually sports a man’s bared chest on the cover, this is not that kind of romance. Beautiful Skin goes much deeper than other romance novels. However, you will find much more gratification out of this soul piercing love than you will find in many other books. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to really grasp what true love is, because not many books are able to capture it so well.
Murray Pura’s Beautiful Skin is a romance novel that has many layers to it. Set in the Second World War between Ukraine and Germany, it is centered around its main character Andrew Chornavka, with his brothers and sisters playing minor characters. The story wends its way from family to romance, with war always going on in the background; it is its own character as much as Andrew Chornavka plays his role. The style of writing is effective, and it immediately pulls you into that of a war-torn family. Its pace is comparable to a long and winding road, full of stops along the way that you don’t see coming, from romantic love interests to other shocks that crop up.
Beautiful Skin by author Murray Pura made me feel as if I had been in a war; you can almost smell the fumes coming up off the pages. It’s so life-like and realistic that you have a more in-depth appreciation for what family members and friends have experienced in battle. Although, one thing I will say, that if you are expecting the kind of romance novel that usually sports a man’s bared chest on the cover, this is not that kind of romance. Beautiful Skin goes much deeper than other romance novels. However, you will find much more gratification out of this soul piercing love than you will find in many other books. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to really grasp what true love is, because not many books are able to capture it so well.
February 23, 2018
Beautiful Skin by Murray Pura is a heart wrenching and yet at the same time heartthrobbing love story centered around the madness of war. Andrew Chornavka details his families life through the horror of war , their love and great sacrifice. This book is not for the faint of heart because Pura is very true to character and explanations in details in war. I found it very difficult at times to read because the details were so vivid and yet these very details were what made the book so very real in its validity. Just as you were at a point went you wanted to shake you head at the horror of all one had to endure and you realize that yes history speaks of this truth, Pura would give you a taste of the love intertwined throughout. This is a story of impossible ends, and yet ends that will come to an eventual end regardless of how they happen it is just a matter of what breaks first. Your faith, your spirit, or your life. You will love this book and find that you can’t put it down just as I did. I highly recommend it
February 12, 2023
🔥 Brick buildings burned like candles whenever the sun disappeared. A thousand flames, no, more than a thousand, for trucks burned, and cars, German and Russian tanks, all night, night after night, they burned like stars that had fallen on Berlin. And people burned too - shopkeepers, wine merchants, bankers, lawyers, soldiers, women, men, children - sometimes they burned the brightest 🔥
…. the opening page ….
…. the opening page ….
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews