Na Zdarov'ye

Returning home to Saint Petersburg a wounded veteran of the Napoleonic Wars of 1812, Mikhail Vostokov arrived at his childhood home, expecting a warm homecoming from the family who adopted him as an infant. He hoped to find Natalya Ivanovna, his fiancée in all but name, waiting for him, and for everything to return to the way it had been before he had left thirteen months before. Of course, hopes are one thing, and reality is entirely another. He had thought that the war had been enough. Little did he know that peace was no easier to navigate, and twice as difficult to hold. A swirling, comprehensive tour of 1812 Saint Petersburg, Na Zdarov'ye takes the reader by the hand through a world of love and betrayal, poverty and hope, ballrooms and dancing bears. Allison Epstein’s first novel takes up the seemingly unanswerable questions of the strength of love, the rigidity of social class, and what happens when vodka, street performing, and a raging blizzard are mixed.