In August of 1944, the Soviet Red Army finally reaches the edge of Hitler’s spreading empire, and life for Asta and her sister, Sophie, will never be the same.

With the arrival of war, bombs and gunfire began to rage around the sisters, destroying their city, forcing them to flee to the countryside. As word spreads of the atrocities from the Soviets and the Nazis, it’s clear that they are safe nowhere. Many evacuate, and Asta and Sophie and their mother join them, leaving the only home they have ever known, hoping to reach the Baltic Sea and escape to a new life on one of the transport ships.

It is a dangerous journey, followed by devastation when their transport is sunk in the harbor by the Red Army's submarines. The sisters survive but are refugees in their own country, daughters displaced by war. They seek refuge in the nearby woods, where they find other children forced into a similar situation. Children who have lost their families and, out of fear for their lives, have chosen to hide and live in the swamps instead. Each day brings them closer and closer to winter, and living in the woods is a deadly situation, surrounded by wild animals, war, and very little food. As children on neither side of the war, can the sisters find a way to stay together and survive?

Steve Watkins is the author of the young adult novels On Blood Road, Juvie, What Comes After, Great Falls, as well as the middle-grade novels Down Sand Mountain, Sink or Swim, and the Ghosts of War series. A former professor of journalism, creative writing, and Vietnam War literature, Steve cofounded and helps a nonprofit yoga studio and works with an urban reforestation organization in his hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia.