Swimming with Spies

Based on the true events of the annexation of Crimea, Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger depicts a familiar world where divisions are sown by hate. But as war escalates between the Russians and Ukrainians in the port city of Sevastopol, can one girl and a dolphin heal her country with love?

In the small fishing town of Sevastopol, Sofiya Alexandrivia only wants two things: to figure out a way to get Ilya Ilyich to stop bullying her, and to convince her mother to come home. The only escape she has from both of these things is the dolphinarium where her tato is a trainer. Here, her best friend just happens to be a fifty-year-old dolphin named Collin who understands her better than anyone.

But as more and more battleships come to populate the waters around their city and Russian forces, including Ilya's father, come to seize the dolphinarium for military use, an even greater threat takes over Sofiya's life. When Sofiy overhears the general telling her father that he'll be expected to have a fleet of dolphins trained to traverse the Arctic waters and engage in warfare, she knows she'll have to act. The Arctic training program has been suspended ever since a pod began getting sick. And the last thing Sofiya can stomach is the pod of dolphins she's come to know and love being forced to attack her friends and family in Ukraine.

But what Sofiya's father doesn't know is that Sofiya has her own way of communicating with this pod. When war escalates and word surfaces that the naval base in Sevastopol will be under attack, Russian troops expect that Sofiya's father will have his pod fully trained for defense. But as Sofiya knows, this is not their war. And as the day of battle approaches, she will have them trained for escape, giving Ukraine an even greater chance to reclaim what's theirs.