It is the summer of 1921, and a group of Bolsheviks have taken over Irina and Lili Goliteva’s ancestral home in Moscow, a stately mansion falling into disrepair and decay. The remaining members of their family are ordered to move into the cramped attic, while the officials take over an entire wing of grand rooms downstairs. The sisters understand it is the way of things and know they must forget their noble upbringing to make their way in this new Soviet Russia. But the house begins to whisper of a traumatic past not as dead as they thought.

Eager to escape it and their unwelcome new landlords, Irina and Lili find jobs with the recently arrived American Relief Administration, meant to ease the post-revolutionary famine in Russia. For the sisters, the ARA provides much-needed food and employment, as well as a chance for sensible Irina to help those less fortunate and artistic Lili to express herself for a good cause. It might just lead them to love, too.

But at home, the spirits of their deceased family awaken, desperate to impart what really happened to them during the Revolution. Soon one of the officials living in the house is found dead. Was his death caused by something supernatural, or by someone all too human? And are Irina and Lili and their family next? Only unearthing the frightening secrets of Moscow House will reveal all. But this means the sisters must dig deep into a past no one in Russia except the dead are allowed to remember.

It is the summer of 1921, and a group of Bolsheviks have taken over Irina and Lili Goliteva’s ancestral home in Moscow, a stately mansion falling into disrepair and decay. The remaining members of their family are ordered to move into the cramped attic, while the officials take over an entire wing of grand rooms downstairs. The sisters understand it is the way of things and know they must forget their noble upbringing to make their way in this new Soviet Russia. But the house begins to whisper of a traumatic past not as dead as they thought.

Eager to escape it and their unwelcome new landlords, Irina and Lili find jobs with the recently arrived American Relief Administration, meant to ease the post-revolutionary famine in Russia. For the sisters, the ARA provides much-needed food and employment, as well as a chance for sensible Irina to help those less fortunate and artistic Lili to express herself for a good cause. It might just lead them to love, too.

But at home, the spirits of their deceased family awaken, desperate to impart what really happened to them during the Revolution. Soon one of the officials living in the house is found dead. Was his death caused by something supernatural, or by someone all too human? And are Irina and Lili and their family next? Only unearthing the frightening secrets of Moscow House will reveal all. But this means the sisters must dig deep into a past no one in Russia except the dead are allowed to remember.

Yaga lives deep in the Russian forest, tending to any that call upon her for her healing potions and vast wisdom.

She has been alone for centuries, with only her beloved animals for company. But, when Tsaritsa Anastasia, wife of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, shows up at Yaga’s cottage on the brink of death, Yaga is compelled to travel with her to Moscow to keep her safe.

However, the Russia Yaga sees as she makes her journey to the heart of the country is one on the brink of chaos. Tsar Ivan – soon to become Ivan the Terrible – grows more volatile and tyrannical by the day, and Yaga believes the tsaritsa is being poisoned by an unknown enemy. But what Yaga cannot know is that Ivan is being manipulated by powers far older and more fearsome than anyone can imagine.

Set in sixteenth-century Russia, The Witch and the Tsar upends the stories we know of Baba Yaga as the bony-legged witch of Slavic fairy tales and the stuff of nightmares. For beyond the rumours of her iron nose, fangs for teeth, and house on chicken legs, is the story of a woman so wise and strong that she has to be cloaked in lies to hide her true power.