The Last Secret

A sweeping, dazzling novel centering on two unforgettable women--a Ukrainian resistance fighter in 1944 Ukraine and a reclusive artist on Salt Spring Island in 1972--and their inextricable link to each other decades apart. For readers of Kate Quinn, Heather Marshall and Genevieve Graham.

Ukraine, 1944

As the world around her is ripped apart by war and infiltrated by Nazi soldiers, Savka Ivanets works as a medic for the Ukrainian resistance, stitching wounds by day, stealing supplies by night, and dodging firefights between the SS and Soviet partisans. Her husband Marko has been gone for years, first as a commander of the resistance and now as areluctant member of the SS, and she lives each day fearing what will become of him and that she--or, worse, their young son Taras--will be taken hostage and tortured or killed.

Then Marko reappears in the darkness of night and after promising her and Taras an escape to safety after the war, gives Savka a coded message that he demands she deliver to an underground bunker. She protests--to leave her, a woman, to such a task is unimaginably dangerous--but, like in many parts of her life, she has no choice.

But Savka’s mission doesn’t go as planned, and Taras is kidnapped by the KGB and she’s shot, left for dead in the trees, and fearing she’ll never see her son again.

Salt Spring Island, 1972

Celebrated landscape artist Jeanie Esterhazy lives a quiet life on a waterfront estate on Salt Spring Island, hidden away from the world that, with its whispers and curious eyes, is too much for her to bear. Ever since the horrific accident on her wedding day years ago that left her scarred, Jeanie feels unlovable and utterly alone. She’s trapped in a battle of wills with her nurse, a tough and cruel woman who threatens to reveal the truth about Jeanie’s shocking part in her accident all those years ago.

Then a mysterious stranger appears at the house, and suddenly Jeanie begins having flashbacks that make her wonder if there’s more to the events of the night of her wedding than she’s been told; flashbacks that make her realize the world around her is not as it seems.

Weaving together Savka and Jeanie’s stories with artful precision, The Last Secret is at once luminous and transporting, a brilliant and impossible-to-forget story of love, hope, and the unwavering resilience of women.

MAIA CARON is a Nanaimo-based Indigenous writer and author of Song of Batoche, a historical novel that was a CBC must-read book for 2018. The Toronto Star described the novel as a ＂tale of love, betrayal and obsession,＂ and Shelagh Rogers of The Last Chapter said it was an ＂ambitious, broad, sweeping, historical mystery.＂