BEYOND SEVEN FORESTS

A Polish noblewoman is tried for a wartime crime in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

It’s 1916 in Galicia, and Countess Renata Zamoyska, once a woman of privilege, now works as a doctor’s assistant. Renata has been accused of disrupting the war effort and faces trial as a traitor. After the brutal loss of her entire family and her own trauma at the hands of the Russians, Renata lives alone in what little remains of her home after Russian soldiers set fire to it—until the night two soldiers, Polish deserters from the Russian army, appear on her doorstep just before a terrible snowstorm. One is gravely ill with gangrene, his leg in desperate need of amputation, and the other refuses to leave his companion’s side. Trapped by the storm, Renata must decide whether to help the men, and in doing so she confronts the boundaries of compassion, duty, and survival. Told through Renata’s testimony, the narrative unfolds in precise prose, revealing not only the events that led to her arrest but the moral and emotional turmoil she was forced to navigate. What begins as a story of wartime legality becomes a meditation on morality, culminating in a shocking twist. A thoughtful examination of boundaries between right and wrong, carried by the moral tension and strength of the characters, this novel challenges readers to question ethical certainties.

Sharp, compelling, and thoughtful.