Iron Curtain: A Love Story

What an intriguing novel. A politician's daughter, our heroine is spoilt and restless in her Soviet satellite state of the early 80ies. Simultaneously pampered and surveilled, she and her friends try to make the best of the jet-set live they are offered within the communist limitations. After a tragedy, she follows a poor British poet and escapes to a new life and love in London. Yet the surveillance apparatus keeps track of her. And that new life of freedom in the west, is harder than expected. Especially when that one person you're hinging all your expectations on, turns out to be all charm and no practicality.

I liked all the small details that sometimes made you wonder if the novel would transform into a spy story. While that did not happen, it still left some of these possibilities open. And betrayal is betrayal, if in love or politics.