'She was called Kukolka,' he says. Little doll.It's an unwelcome reminder of Mum's porcelain prisoners back in London. Of all the things we could have brought with us from Russia - and we weren't able to bring very much - she chose them.Rosie's only inheritance from her reclusive mother is a book of Russian fairy tales. But there is another story lurking between the lines. Not so long ago, Rosie lived peacefully in Moscow and her mother told fairy tales at bedtime. But one summer night, all that came abruptly to an end when her father and sister were gunned down.

Years later, Rosie is a doctoral student at Oxford, with a fiancé who knows nothing of her former life and an ailing, alcoholic mother lost to a notebook full of eerie, handwritten little stories. Desperate for answers to the questions that have tormented her, Rosie returns to her homeland and uncovers a devastating family history which spans the 1917 Revolution, the siege of Leningrad, Stalin's purges and beyond. At the heart of those answers stands a young noblewoman, Tonya, as pretty as a porcelain doll, whose actions reverberate across the century .s a young noblewoman, Tonya, as pretty as a porcelain doll, whose actions reverberate across the century .s a young noblewoman, Tonya, as pretty as a porcelain doll, whose actions reverberate across the century .s a young noblewoman, Tonya, as pretty as a porcelain doll, whose actions reverberate across the century .