Anarchist poet Katya Efremova has spent ten months imprisoned in a covert government laboratory. When an escape attempt goes terribly wrong, she's transferred to a new prison colony being established on Solovetsky Island in the White Sea. She learns her arrest wasn’t due to her involvement in a magic-fueled resistance against the Bolsheviks—it was because of her murdered mother’s research into the legendary folk hero, Stenka Razin. Katya finds a clue her mother left for her the day she died, which may contain a cipher: Listen to the whisper of stars.
Given his title of nobility, imprisoned aristocrat Dima Danilov knows he’ll never leave Solovetsky Island alive. Dima finds a 250-year-old manuscript written by his ancestor which gives a first-person account of Stenka Razin’s rebellion against the tsar. Desperate for his life to mean something before it’s over, Dima decides to write an epic poem based on Razin’s life, hoping to encourage Russians to revolt against Bolshevik tyranny.
Natasha is a rogue witch who has been experimented on in the government laboratory for two years. When she’s offered her freedom in exchange for spying on Katya, she jumps at the chance, though she has her own reasons for wanting to solve the conspiracy surrounding Katya’s mother’s death.
As their goals intertwine, the three imprisoned Russians work together to uncover the secret behind Stenka Razin’s rebellion, a secret woven into the history of Solovetsky Island.
Discovering the island’s legendary power might be the key to overthrowing the Bolshevik regime, but as Katya solves the puzzle of her mother's murder she realizes she wasn't sent to Solovetsky by chance. The head of the government’s spy network is using her to find Stenka Razin’s power, and there will be no hope of a free Russia if he takes hold of the magic hidden beneath the White Sea snow.
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