AustLit

'Award-winning writer Katrina Nannestad transports us to Russia and the Great Patriotic War and into the life of Sasha, a soldier at only six years old ...

'Wood splinters and Mama screams and the nearest soldier seizes her roughly by the arms. My sister pokes her bruised face out from beneath the table and shouts, 'Run, Sasha! Run!'

'So I run. I run like a rabbit.

'It's spring, 1942. The sky is blue, the air is warm and sweet with the scent of flowers.

'And then everything is gone.

'The flowers, the proud geese, the pretty wooden houses, the friendly neighbours. Only Sasha remains.

'But one small boy, alone in war-torn Russia, cannot survive.

'One small boy without a family cannot survive.

'One small boy without his home cannot survive.

'What that small boy needs is an army.' (Publication summary)

'Sometimes it's good to be wild.

'Sometimes you have to be wild.

'When the Russian Army marches into East Prussia at the end of the war, the Wolf family must flee. Liesl, Otto and their baby sister Mia find themselves lost and alone, in a blizzard, in the middle of a war zone. Liesl has promised Mama that she will keep her brother and sister safe.

'But sometimes, to survive, you have to do bad things. Dangerous things. Wild things.

'Sometimes to survive, you must become a wolf.' (Publication summary)

'At last, Freja and her mother, Clementine, are together again. Tobias and Vivi are in love. And Lucerne, their new home, is a paradise of snowy alps, sapphire lakes, white swans and delicious Swiss chocolate!

'It all seems perfect, until poor Lady P appears, bandaged from head to toe after a fall (or was it a push?). Crimes break out across the city, all involving chocolate. Clementine doesn't seem her usual self. And still Freja has not solved the biggest mystery of all - who is Tobias Appleby?

'All will be revealed in the girl, the dog and the writer's final adventure by award-winning Australian author Katrina Nannestad.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.