A deeply compelling tale of a woman caught inside the destruction of a Communist regime.

'A VERY PERSONAL STORY OF LOVE AND LOSS... PALPITATINGLY TOLD... THIS IS AN EXCELLENT READ.' Morning Star

'... VIVID IMAGES, LIVELY CHARACTER STUDIES, A PORTRAIT OF A BRUTAL, CONTROLLING REGIME.' Historical Novel Society

'SARGENT'S DEPICTION OF IORDANA CEAUSESCU RESTORES HER AS A LUMINESCENT AND RESILIENT WHOLE SET AGAINST A TURBULENT BACKGROUND.' Midwest Book Review

Iordana is a normal girl, brought up with all the perks of Romania's corrupt communist regime. Then she falls in love and marries the eldest son of her parents' arch-rival, Romania's monstrous dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. They become the in-laws from hell, but she brings them their only grandson. And then there's the 1989 revolution, when crowds will kill anyone with the Ceausescu name. In all the blood and chaos, can Iordana keep her little son alive?

Drawn from eighty hours of unique interviews and told in Iordana's own voice; this true-life tale spins readers into the pleasures, excesses and horrors of late twentieth-century Europe.