Lana Kortchik grew up in two opposite corners of the Soviet Union – a snow-white Siberian town and the golden-domed Ukrainian capital. At the age of sixteen, she moved to Australia with her mother. Lana and her family live on the Central Coast of NSW, where it never snows and is always summer-warm, even in winter. She loves books, martial arts, the ocean and Napoleonic history. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies. She was the winner of Historical Novel Society Autumn 2012 Short Fiction competition and the runner-up of 2013 Defenestrationism Short Story Contest. This is her first novel.