Your Mouth Is Lovely — Nancy Richler

Set in Russia between 1890 and 1912, Your Mouth Is Lovely follows the story of Miriam, a nineteen-year-old sent into Siberian exile after the Russian Revolution of 1905. In a letter to her daughter -- whom she was forced to give up at birth -- Miriam presents a haunting flashback to a shtetl in Belarus, where everyone except herself knew the secret of her parents' past and the mystery behind her young mother's suicide. As Miriam narrates the story of her poignant childhood, she brings to life the culture of the shtetl in the last days of imperial Russia, a community caught between the rich yet rigid traditions of the past and the frightening, unfamiliar ways of a society desperately trying to reinvent itself. A story of love and loss, crime and punishment, Your Mouth Is Lovely captures an ordinary woman caught in the circumstances of her era, and shows how small choices, twists of fate, and betrayals can determine a particular life, even at the great, transitional moments in history.