The Zoya Septet Series

When the Chornavka family emigrate to Ukraine and return to their family's roots, they are expecting to experience a Communist utopia of peace and prosperity. But Stalin's ruthless purge of the Ukrainian people shatters their lives. Unable to return to Canada or America, the Chornavkas can only try to survive what millions of others cannot. Rising above the carnage and death, they find life, faith and hope once more. But their courage is tested yet again when Nazi Germany invades Russia and Ukraine. Amidst the horrors of total war, with their family scattered over thousands of miles of blazing fields and burning villages, they still must find a way to fight back, to believe again, and to hang onto the one thing they refuse to allow human conflict to tear out of their hearts. Love.

Andrew Chornavka took on the Trappist's cowl and disappeared from the 21st century in order to forget the century before. Yet even at the secluded monastery in America the past finds him. A delegation from the Vatican arrives with questions about his youngest sister, Zoya, who is, to Andrew's shock, a candidate for sainthood. Reluctant, hostile, wanting only to be left alone to his dairy herd and gardens and prayers, Andrew eventually begins to talk. The talk takes him where he does not wish to go, makes alive again what he had hoped was dead and buried, and makes real what had long ago been lost. He knows what he has to tell is no more than a story about a family that tried to stay together, and keep love strong, when everything on earth tried to rip that love apart. Yet he also knows the archbishop wants a story about an angel who walked with God. But Andrew did not experience a world of angels and miracles and fairy tales. And neither did his sister Zo. Or did she?

Once upon a time there was a war and Andrew Chornavka and his family were caught up in its fires. Love, betrayal, sacrifice, heroism, savagery, things amazing and miraculous - it was all part of his world, and the world of his brothers and sisters, as armies clashed and battles raged in the skies and on the ground. Yet the wars of the heart were no less fiery and painful, and the hunt to find hope and meaning within nations ripped apart by conflict, just as desperate as the struggle to survive. America, Canada, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Germany and Berlin are the backdrop to a powerful drama of the human soul, to a story of a love that proved impossible to stop, a war that proved impossible to win and a faith that proved impossible to break.

Yura's total existence has had a rough start. His mother's breakdown, his brother's chronic illness and his father's physical abuse have turned his 24/7 into a quest for healing on every level imaginable – mental, emotional, spiritual. But where will the healing come from? Choi Jeans, the tattooed CrossFit Goth who believes his destiny lies in the zodiac? Zoryana, the six-two goddess and jazz dancer who thinks her love and a condo in Europe should do the trick? Or what about his Uncle Nazar, who detests assimilation, and crams Yura's Eastern European bloodlines into him over beer, homemade dill pickles and Russian Orthodox icons? Miraculously, it all begins to come together with Zoryana. Until a family secret and a revolution in the streets of Kiev threaten to break Yura's beautiful new world into bright shiny pieces and make life more impossible than it has ever been before. Or, depending on the constellations and the summer equinox and an offbeat eternal point of view, offer more of life, love, romance and a star-spangled universe than he's ever dreamed possible.

Exquisitely written, the tale is as simple as it is complex in its scope.   Freeman Chernenko's maternal grandmother, a Ukrainian immigrant to America, is known in the Russian Orthodox Church as a saint because of her Joan-of-Arc-like role during World War Two.   Having gone to fight in the present conflict among Russia, Ukraine, and Ukraine rebels, Freeman is assigned to defend a shrine to St. Zoya.   A religious skeptic, Freeman is shocked to discover his ancestry and doubts it, finding himself in a spiritual dilemma amid an enemy, troops defending the shrine among wheat and sunflower fields, nuns, monks, miraculous healings, meadowlark twitterings, Van Gogh-like paintings, passionate love and bloody combat. The fortunate readers of this superbly presented story will be enraptured. And may there be many!   Five stars. Jon Michael Miller for Readers' Favorite

This is the story of a war. But it is also a story of human love and beauty and faith that the sun will rise again over a nation torn by terrible conflict.If a novel is like live streaming video, then poetry is a gallery of HD images taken with your iPhone or Nikon DSLR, each picture sharp and crystalline and rich with color and meaning, etched in your mind forever thanks to its precision and brilliance. This is a small book of such high definition images, vivid snaps of one man's journey through the recent military conflict in Ukraine. People's faces are here, fields of flowers are here, impossibly blue skies and sharp suns, roads and streets and windows that remain perfectly intact even though the rest of the house has been blown to pieces. Love is here, and peace sits in the same room as pain, while hope has more strength than killing or death. The man's words are beautiful and true and, as real as the war he fights is, dawn and tomorrow are more real. Parts of it will tell your story. Parts of it will become your story. Parts of it will take you on a journey you never expected to take. That is the power of poetry in motion. Begin at this man's beginning.

Andrew Chornavka took on the Trappist's cowl and disappeared from the 21st century in order to forget the century before. Yet even at the secluded monastery in America the past finds him. A delegation from the Vatican arrives with questions about his youngest sister, Zoya, who is, to Andrew's shock, a candidate for sainthood. Reluctant, hostile, wanting only to be left alone to his dairy herd and gardens and prayers, Andrew eventually begins to talk. The talk takes him where he does not wish to go, makes alive again what he had hoped was dead and buried, and makes real what had long ago been lost. He knows what he has to tell is no more than a story about a family that tried to stay together, and keep love strong, when everything on earth tried to rip that love apart. Yet he also knows the archbishop wants a story about an angel who walked with God. But Andrew did not experience a world of angels and miracles and fairy tales. And neither did his sister Zo.

Pura is the poetic voice of outrage and compassion for our times. Beautiful and heartbreaking. ~Kokolali   Murray Pura's poetry is always a melodic revelation, but this book is special. It is a labor of profound sympathy, insight and love for the Ukrainian people and their continuing struggle against the outrages and horror of an unprovoked war. At times tender and nostalgic, at times brutal, it is an unforgettable read. I highly recommend it. ~Mary R   Please don't avoid Murray Pura's A Gathering of Suns just because you don't favor poetry. Pura's poems sing with accessibility for all readers, and they will touch and move you. Pura blends his own Ukrainian family history and stories with the current war in Ukraine, giving insights into what traits of the people enable their courageous stand against aggression. Read a poem, slowly ponder it, let it steep in your heart, and feel your understanding grow ~Tim R   The eBook edition of A Gathering of Suns published by RCP Press of Canada