I was very impressed with this book and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It is a complex story of young girls who are sent to safety in Canada by a Russian mother who 'knows' she will never see them again. They grow up in a very stable, wealthy family but not an ideal environment for both of the girls. One ends up moving to NYC and the other stays in Canada. They each live their life being haunted by their past but each also deals with that very differently. One of the girls suffers from a severe psychological problem brought on by an early experience. The book's title is very appropriate- there are several fists around the heart.

This book really touched my heart. A story of sisters torn from their homeland of Russia to come to Winnipeg without their parents and away from everything they have ever known. Told in alternating viewpoints from the present (of 1942) as well as the past (from their arrival in Winnipeg in the 1880's) you learn the story of two sisters, Esther and Anna and of Esther's untimely death.

Anna has been separate from Esther for many years and she has to figure out the mystery surrounding her death and if it really was suicide. I really loved seeing life through the early 20th century in both Winnipeg and Manhattan and was both saddened and inspired by the lives of these women.

I enjoyed reading this story and having a part of these two sisters lives for a little while.

The premise of this book was fascinating, an interesting time of history and an interesting setting. However, I felt the scope and breadth was a little too large and left the mystery hanging where the reader wanted it to deepen. The characterization and development of the way life was in the 20th century was very well executed, as were the relational ties between characters and cameos/references to historical figures throughout the pages. Yet it fell short in some of the ways it dealt with Esther's death in particular. I felt the reasoning behind this truly lacked power and motive. However, this was still a decent book - perhaps just not for me. Thank you to publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my fair and honest review.

If Day was a campaign that happened in Winnipeg, Manatoba, Feb. 19, 1942. It was meant as a way to, basically, scare the local population into buying more war bonds. Just the way we have emergency drills these days, where accidents, or earthquakes, or natural disasters are simulated, often on a grand scale, to make sure everyone is ready when it strikes, this too was a massive undertaking to show what would happen if the Nazis invaded Canada.

They went all out. They took over the school, they stole the coats from the policeman. People were warned about this, but it was still shocking to see, and they raised a lot of money in war bonds.

So, that is the background, well, the initial background for this book.

And then, there is all the stuff in between.

I like the concept of this book, that Esther returns to Winnipeg, from a trip to see her sister, Anna, in New York, and she arrives at the train station on "What If" day, and promptly runs into the tracks as an oncoming train comes through. This is ruled suicide, and Anna spend the rest of the book reminiscing about her sister, and her life, and trying to figure out why Esther would have killed herself.

The background is interesting, and the stories of their lives, how they escaped from Russia to the Canada, and what happened after that is kind of cool, and I liked the historical fiction of Anna not only meeting Margaret Sanger, but working with her, and without her to help women get birth control, when it was still illegal to do so.

So, most of the book made sense, and was informative, and was, hopefully leading us to understanding why Esther might have killed herself, or if she did so by accident.

Then, it completely goes off the rails, and send Anna to Russian to be there during the Revolution, and to have an affair with a Russian. It only advanced the story in the fact that she got to see her father's grave.

So, although this is an very readable book on what life in New York was like in the 1920s-1940s, and Margaret Sanger, and all, read it more for family dynamics, and shout-outs to the historical figures that are in here, then for any type of mystery, which in the end, but a bit of a let down.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.