Moonlight in Odessa by Janet Skeslien Charles

[SS.]

Moonlight in Odessa – absolutely new book about Odesa and Odesa girl looking for a better life in the USA.

Daria is twenty-five and has an engineering degree. She’s bright, talented and - especially now she’s got a set of new teeth - attractive. But as her home is Odessa in Ukraine she feels her possibilities are limited - not least in her choice of men. Much as she loves her homeland, it’s not long before she starts to succumb to the American dream. Daria is the heroine of a new novel, Moonlight in Odessa, that delves with wit and poignancy into the world of email brides. Its author, Janet Skeslien Charles, joins Jenni.

The author worked in Odesa for 2 years in the middle of 1990-ies as an English teacher. She really knows the city and the time and the book is rather interesting.

[Critic]

Another review (by Kate Saunders, The Times)

Moonlight in Odessa by Janet Skeslien Charles (Bloomsbury, ?11.99; 342pp) Daria is a beautiful Ukrainian girl trying to scratch a living in Odessa. She has perfect English and a degree in engineering, but when she is offered a coveted job with a foreign company there is a catch. Daria’s boss, Mr Harmon, expects to sleep with her. Should she turn him down? “I didn’t want to end up like my girlfriends, with no choices and no money.” He fixes her teeth and showers her with gifts, until she manages to fend him off with her friend Olga. But Daria isn’t immune to the temptations of the West when she moonlights as a translator at a dating agency. This is a witty, bittersweet, unexpected look at the world of mail-order brides.