There’s nothing quite like the day when your book goes out officially into the world. I spent so many months researching and writing Our Woman in Moscow, and I finished it right in the middle of our Covid summer, so this novel of Cold War espionage and human love, inspired by the scintillating real-life history of the Cambridge spy ring, has a particular power for me.
In 1948, Iris Digby vanishes from her London home with her American diplomat husband and their two children. The world is shocked by the family’s sensational disappearance. Were they eliminated by the Soviet intelligence service? Or have the Digbys defected to Moscow with a trove of the West’s most vital secrets? Four years later, Ruth Macallister receives a postcard from the twin sister she hasn’t seen since their catastrophic parting in Rome in the summer of 1940, as war engulfed the continent and Iris fell desperately in love with an enigmatic US Embassy official named Sasha Digby. Within days, Ruth is on her way to Moscow, posing as the wife of counterintelligence agent Sumner Fox in a precarious plot to extract the Digbys from behind the Iron Curtain. But the complex truth behind Iris’s marriage defies Ruth’s understanding, and as the sisters race toward safety, a dogged KGB officer forces them to make a heartbreaking choice between two irreconcilable loyalties.
I’m so delighted by all the rave notices for this book from early readers, reviewers, and booksellers. A starred LibraryJournal review says “Williams has a sure hand in this deceptively quiet novel,” while Publishers Weekly claims, “Historical fiction fans will be riveted by the complex family relationships and the intriguing portrayal of espionage.” Our Woman in Moscow is a LibraryReads pick for June and an IndieNext pick by the independent booksellers association, which means booksellers and librarians agree—this is one novel you won’t want to miss this summer!
You can find out much more about Our Woman in Moscow, including a fantastic readers’ guide I developed with my publisher, right here. I hope you’ll immerse yourself in reading about these rich, complex characters as much as I loved creating them.