Leninsky Prospekt

Conflicting allegiances–to family, friends, nations, ideals–at a time of legendary international tension.
In October 1962, Nikita Krushchev and John Kennedy confronted each other over the deployment of Russian missiles in Cuba, and the world came as close as it has ever been to nuclear holocaust. During the crisis, the New York City Ballet, led by the Russian-born choreographer George Balanchine, was performing in Moscow. And the dissident movement was taking hold among certain members of the Soviet intelligentsia.

Nina Davenport, the lonely bride of a gifted, increasingly preoccupied American diplomat, was raised in Moscow where she was a ballet student at the Bolshoi; she made an unprecedented escape to the West in the 1950s. Her return to the Soviet Union is reckless at best. And now, at the height of world crisis, hemmed in by diplomatic restraints, followed by spies, she contacts old friends and confronts the demons of her girlhood.

An EVENING STANDARD “Best seller for London” September 2005
“Bucknell conjures up the life of an imprisoned Soviet dissident in the Sixties and Seventies, a life of constant, tiny acts of resistance to the regime . . . brilliantly perceptive‚ an intelligent, ambitious novel” Charlotte Hobson, SPECTATOR

“Delicately wrought, beautifully precise writing” TIME OUT

“[A] touching portrait of the evolution of a young marriage: the joy and idealism of falling in love followed by the insecurities and misunderstandings … Nina, fragile, troubled, beautiful and defiant, is an appealing heroine.” SUNDAY TIMES

“’It is always a pleasure to encounter an author who tackles big ideas, complex relationships, ambitious themes, and has a woman as the protagonist. Bucknell has in abundance the resources to write powerful, moving, intense and intelligent fiction” Linda Grant, OBSERVER

“a compelling novel, full of secrets and shame” Robert Colville” THE TELEGRAPH REVIEW