by Maria Reva
First published 2025
Yeva searches Ukraine's forests for rare snails, desperate to breed them before they vanish forever. Her relatives want her married with children, but Yeva has other plans. She dates Western men who arrive on romance tours, using their money to fund her conservation work. These men expect to find submissive Ukrainian brides untouched by Western feminism. Meanwhile, sisters Nastia and Solomiya work the same marriage industry from a different angle. Nastia pretends to be a hopeful bride while Solomiya poses as her translator. They're actually hunting for their mother, who disappeared after years of fighting against these romance tours. In 2022, as war threatens their country, the three women's paths collide. They end up traveling across Ukraine together with a truck full of kidnapped Western bachelors and Lefty, a snail who might be the last of his species. Their journey becomes a race against time in a nation about to change forever.
Genres: literary-fiction, adventure, contemporary, social-issues, activism, family-drama
Vibes: darkly-comedic, emotionally-complex, satirical, surreal, thought-provoking, urgent
Tropes: coming-together, deception, forced-proximity, found-family, road-trip
Setting: Ukraine, Ukrainian forests
Period: 2022, contemporary
338 pages · Paperback · Virago
Content warnings: trafficking, war