[2] The novel describes the reactions of two daughters when their widowed, 84-year-old father Nikolai marries a highly sexual and much younger Ukrainian immigrant, Valentina.

They find themselves united against a common enemy in Valentina, whose grasping, manipulative behavior escalates until the daughters finally succeed in obtaining a divorce for their father.

Nikolai, a former engineer who emigrated to Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War, is writing a history of tractors in Ukrainian, translated extracts from which appear throughout the novel.

In the process of sorting out Nikolai's marital entanglements, Nadezhda also uncovers secrets from her family's history and learns about their experiences during the Ukrainian famine and Stalin's purges.

[3] The Polish translator and travel writer Magda Healey, reviewing the book for Bookbag, thought it "eminently readable, well flowing and colourful", though it showed a common fault of autobiographical debut novels, with too much content crammed in, the stories often not thoroughly explored.