Books Like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Swan and the Star

Ross Connelly

A young American woman goes to Moscow State as the Soviet Union is collapsing, quietly encouraged by American intelligence to build relationships with the Russians who may inherit the country. Instead, she becomes emotionally entangled with the people and country she was sent to observe. In Moscow, Chloe Hunter finds a friend and confidante in Gabby Pasternak, her Romanian roommate, and draws close to Alexi Fedorov, an ambitious young law graduate destined for the Russian Foreign Ministry. As the Soviet world around them begins to unravel, their friendships challenge Chloe’s understanding of loyalty, family, and where she belongs. A chance encounter with Ryan Chandler, an independent American petroleum engineer working in western Siberia, draws Chloe deeper into Russia’s vast interior. When sabotage threatens Ryan’s life in a catastrophic well blowout, Chloe can no longer remain merely an observer. Against the upheaval of a country reinventing itself, Chloe must decide which loyalties are inherited, which are chosen—and who she intends to become.