Blood Red Snow White

When writer Arthur Ransome leaves his unhappy marriage in England and moves to Russia to work as a journalist, he has little idea of the violent revolution about to erupt. Unwittingly, he finds himself at its center, tapped by the British to report back on the Bolsheviks even as he becomes dangerously, romantically entangled with Leon Trotsky's personal secretary.

Both sides seek to use Arthur to gather and relay information for their own purposes . . . and both grow to suspect him of being a double agent. Arthur wants only to elope far from conflict with his beloved, but her Russian ties make leaving the country nearly impossible. And the more Arthur resists becoming a pawn, the more entrenched in the game he seems to become.

Blood Red Snow White, a Soviet-era thriller about the author of the Swallows and Amazons series, from renowned Printz award winning author Marcus Sedgwick, is sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats. Sedgwick masterfully evokes the tumultuous atmosphere of Russia leading up to the creation of the communist Soviet Union, with colorful depictions of major historical figures like the Romanov tsar and tsarina, Grigori Rasputin, Leon Trotsky, and Vladimir Lenin.