I’m over halfway through the A to Z blogging challenge with my N entry. As with the Anne and Ivan entries, this one was a no-brainer in keeping with my theme of introducing Dust to Blood. Natasha is one of the primary characters in the book, and the most complex to write because of the fantastic nature of her evolution.
In fact, she changes the most, at a hyper-accelerated pace, of any of the characters in the story. Describing that while maintaining believability was a real challenge.
When we meet her, she is incarcerated and abused, and Anne and Igor rescue her. She is mostly mute the first few days before she blossoms into a wholly unexpected individual.
Since she is both central to and the key for the book, I can’t say too much more without spoiling the storyline, but at least the picture captures her youth and ethnicity–and the curtain of hair she hides behind as we first get to know her.