Beyond Seven Forests
As the novel opens, 18-year-old Renia, a Polish countess and the only surviving member of her family, is on trial and facing a death sentence amid World War I on the Eastern Front. The Austro-Hungarian authorities have accused her of helping two deserters from the Russian army, one of whom awaits his turn for trial and execution. Then she tells her story of coming home from her shift as a nurse to the ruins of her family’s estate in the middle of a snowstorm to find the two teenage soldiers occupying her kitchen (the only room not burned out in a previous attack) and demanding at gunpoint that she treat the wounds of the younger soldier. Under the horrific conditions, including lack of heat and sanitation, the younger soldier dies. Trapped together, Renia and the older boy get to know each other across lines of class and allegiance. She learns that Adya is also Polish, a commoner whom the Russians forced into the army against his will. And she begins to fall in love with him as they discover that they have more in common than the things that separate them.
McCrina’s tightly written, lyrical novel for teens depicts a little-known aspect of World War I from the perspective of a Polish subject of Austria-Hungary. The author sheds light on class and ethnic divisions of a region not only devastated by war but also changed by the erosion of feudal relations between nobility and peasants in the face of industrialization, women’s rights, and socialism. Among those who have put Renia on trial are military officers seeking to make Poland into an independent and democratic state. Readers will quickly sympathize with the intrepid Renia and hope her remarkable story will lead these officers to mercy rather than a harsh retribution.
