From former Pentagon official and award-winning historical novelist Suzanne Parry comes The Communist’s Secret—a haunting WWII novel of betrayal, bravery, and second chances.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Suzanne Parry’s The Communist’s Secret, which releases on August 5th 2025.
Driven by a blind devotion to the Communist Party, self-centered Katya Karavayeva has broken the most important rule in Soviet society: Never say anything that can be used against you. On the heels of that betrayal, Nazi Germany invades and the Soviet Union mobilizes. Katya hopes to halt her downward spiral by joining the volunteer militia, but within a few short weeks finds herself under attack.
After escaping with another volunteer, Katya spends weeks on the run before landing in a town under Nazi occupation. There, she finds a place and a purpose and learns to fight a different kind of war, repaying German brutality with a harsh justice of her own. By turns desperate, courageous, and conflicted, she battles the Nazis and her own inner demons while dreaming of reunion with her daughter and forgiveness from her husband—the one she betrayed.
For fans of Kate Quinn and Mark Sullivan, The Communist’s Secret is the second book of The Leningrad Trilogy, a saga set in Soviet Russia during World War II and the post-war era.
Escape From Luga, August 1941
. . . They rested a few moments, letting their breathing calm. The leaves swished in the summer breeze, a bird called to its mate, a ground squirrel rustled. Perhaps they had lost the soldiers. Katya clutched at her upper arm and Svet turned her attention to the trickle of blood.
“You were lucky,” Svet whispered, taking a close look.
“Lucky would have been not getting shot at all,” said Katya. “Or the Nazis choosing a different place to attack.”
“Still, it could have hit you in the back,” the teen continued.
“Or the head,” Katya said, giving in to the girl’s line of reasoning.
Svet pressed on the small wound and wrapped it with the last strip of cloth from her hands. She frowned at the dirty rag. “Wish it was clean.”
“Can’t think about that,” Katya said.
“Let’s slow a bit. It’ll help stop the bleeding.” Svet tightened the makeshift bandage.
Katya checked the compass and led the way at a brisk walk. Just as her heart and lungs settled into a comfortable rhythm and she felt confident the soldiers weren’t following, a distant male voice filled her with adrenalin. Katya turned to see the teen’s wide eyes and the two broke into a run. After another six or seven minutes of crashing through the brush and dodging trees, they came upon an oak grove. Svet stopped at the first magisterial tree, looking up, examining its
large limbs and canopy of leaves extending far above. The branches were high—above their heads by at least a meter. Suddenly, the girl turned to Katya, her fingers interlaced, ready to boost her into the tree. “We can’t outrun them,” she said. “But they’ll never look up.”
Katya nodded and stepped into her hands. Svet lifted while Katya grabbed the first branch. She hung there for a heartbeat, then swung a leg up and over and pulled herself onto the huge limb. Katya lay face down on the branch, one long arm extended toward Svet. The teen ran at the tree and jumped, but missed Katya’s hand. The second time, they grasped wrists and Katya pulled. Svet’s upward momentum helped her scramble into the crook of the massive oak. Without
a word, they climbed higher.
They lay there, perhaps a dozen meters above the ground, each stretched along different branches. Katya tried to slow her breathing. A tiny noise, a “psst,” came from Svet and she waved her pistol. Katya withdrew her own, checking that it was loaded, and released the
safety. The tree’s rough bark pushed into her body and she adjusted herself on the limb so she could view the forest floor. The wound throbbed, and she was glad it was her left arm that had been hit. Seconds ticked past. Katya strained to hear anything beyond the rustling of the leaves and the occasional bird chirp-chirping.
She stared at Svet’s motionless form, when suddenly a single finger pointed. Through the leaves, Katya saw two, then three, then four soldiers, rifles at the ready, moving methodically. They turned from side to side as they came, separate, but advancing together as they swept through the forest—a strange kind of ballet. One paused directly beneath them and rested his rifle against the tree trunk. Katya’s heart pounded so hard she was certain he would hear it. The soldier whistled to the others and they gathered, speaking German which Katya couldn’t understand. She saw the one in charge examine something. They were fit, enthusiastic-looking, and young. Not a single grizzled veteran among them. They looked like boys playing dress-up in their fathers’ uniforms.
Controlling her breathing required so much concentration that at first Katya didn’t feel the trickle of blood. The bandage had shifted when she climbed. Now gravity pulled at the line of red inching down the back of her arm to her elbow where it gathered. Katya couldn’t wipe it away without shifting and making noise. She tried to pull her left arm in against her body, thinking to tug her rolled-up sleeve down to catch the blood. The scarlet drop fell just as she began to move. It somehow missed all the branches and leaves and landed exactly below her on the map the soldier was holding. The little splat was like a bomb.
The soldiers’ heads snapped up. Katya saw confusion in their frantic faces. A loud bang startled her. One soldier fell to the ground. The others raised their weapons and began firing wildly. Svet hit a second soldier and he also went down. The remaining two scrambled for cover. Katya concentrated on one. She missed twice but finally found her mark. He fell, twisting, one arm flying out to the side. The shooting stopped and Katya glimpsed a soldier crawling away into the undergrowth. Svet dropped to the forest floor and disappeared after him. Katya herself shimmied to the main crook and swung down. She edged toward each of the three soldiers in turn. One was still alive. He stared back at her, eyes pleading, saying “bitte, bitte, nicht schiessen.” Looking into his young face, she thought about waiting for Svet to do the dirty work. Shooting someone from a distance was one thing. Killing someone face-to-face was another. Still, she couldn’t leave him alive. She had to pull her weight and didn’t want Svet to think her cowardly. Her
stomach turned as she gathered her nerve. It was war. And that’s what she said to him before she pulled the trigger. “It’s war.”
. . .
