Sometimes a book bother you more than others especially when you already know that what is written has already happened with someone.

What captivated me first towards red hands was its title, secondly look at that cover isn't it beautiful. Yeah it is. Third was the synopsis which read like a movie story. In fact after I started reading I couldn't stop myself from wondering this does sound like a movie story. That it is actually unbelievable that this has happened with someone who walked this earth once.

This is a story of Iordana Borilă and her escape from Romania in anti-communist movement told in first POV , in her own words after about 800 hours long interviews with Colin Sargent. As it is told through Iordana's own words the impact and the horror of the situation it offered was huge so I will definitely commend Sargent for choosing her POV to tell her own story.

Iordana was a daughter of arch-rival of Ceaușescu family, brought up with all the perks of Romania's corrupt regime of communism. When she fell in love with oldest son of Ceaușescu family, both families were totally against their union but they went against their wishes and married each other and Iordana's life turned upside down as Ceaușescu never accepted her as their part of the family.

I wouldn't say that her life was hard or sad exactly not in a way that will bring tears to your eyes, it was more like giving nightmares kind of horrors. She tried to survive whatever came her way and even that took a lot of courage. Living a life with people who hate you, who constantly look down at you or who might kill you isn't any easy. The life of constant threat is no life at all. But she survived that somehow.


This book is chilling and horrifying story of her and Romania and it is fascinating too. I will definitely recommend as it also made me aware of things I wasn't aware, long lost in the history's pages which I seldom read so that's my bad to be honest.

Thank you Colin Sargent, Barbican press and Netgalley for the wonderful ARC in exchange of an honest review.

I found this to be a very compelling read but outside the scope of my blog. I have left an honest star review as I greatly appreciate the read, but I will not be including it in my publication. Thank you.

Told in her voice, Red Hans is drawn from eight hundred hours of unique interviews with Iordana Ceausescu. This is a story that is difficult to read. If someone lives in a rosey world, they will hate this. This is communism life, this is people starving, this is people dying from lack of medical treatment and other dying from unnecessary treatments.

It's a horrible, horrible story that Colin W Sargent has written with a keen eye for just enough details. It's powerful and should be a must read for anyone who questions American leadership. :)

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

This book was truly a delight. Once again, Colin W. Sargent delivers a captivating narrative set in the backdrop of Communist history. I appreciated the memoir-like quality of the story and found great pleasure in immersing myself in the character of Iordana as portrayed in this book.
I found myself irresistibly drawn into its pages, eager to uncover the unfolding events with each turn of the page.

📖REVIEW📖
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

📖Synopsis:
Iordana is a normal girl, brought up with all the perks of Romania’s corrupt communist regime. Then she falls in love and marries the eldest son of her parents’ arch-rival, Romania’s monstrous dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. They become the in-laws from hell, but she brings them their only grandson. And then there’s the 1989 revolution, when crowds will kill anyone with the Ceausescu name. In all the blood and chaos, can Iordana keep her little son alive?

Drawn from eighty hours of unique interviews and told in Iordana’s own voice; this true-life tale spins readers into the pleasures, excesses and horrors of late twentieth-century Europe.

📖Review: (ARC)
This is a well written true life tale which details some of the devastating events to happen at the end of the last century. It feels historically authentic and I haven’t read much from this period of time so found it really interesting.

*please note I received this ARC for free via NetGalley and independently decided to submit an honest review*

Colin W. Sargent does it again on the historical story in the world of Communism. I enjoyed that this was kinda like a memoir and I really enjoyed getting to know Iordana through this book.

Love it! I couldn’t put it down whenever I turn the paged I wanted to know what was going to happen next.

This book is not for the faint of heart. If you are uncomfortable reading about what it is like to live in a communist society where people are starving, being denied medical treatment or given nonconsented medical treatment (forced pregnancy termination), gaslighting, war, and reading an account that details all this very matter-of-fact then it's not for you (because for her, this what it was like in her life for decades).

The description says in-laws from hell but I don't think that goes far enough. Her in-laws are the head of the communist country and they hate her. Her brother-in-law's girlfriend had a forced termination at 5 months while Iordana was also pregnant because her MIL hated Iordana and especially that she was pregnant. They made her life increasingly worse to try to get her to leave their son. Iordana did what she could in a horrible situation, even going as far as accepting "gifts" from her in-laws to trade for other people's medications and treatment (again, communist society), all the while her husband either was ignorant or gaslighting her into believing everything was fine (she always knew better). Her in-laws also ran the country into the ground while spewing propaganda that everything's good and sunny.

The book is based off a series of interviews of Iordana gave to the author and is written in 1st person narrative. She read the proof and asked it not to be published until after her death. The first half of the book is pretty slow, detailing how her and her husband met, got married, and lived before his parents took over the country. The last 30% discusses how the country went through a revolution, how Iordana and her son lived in hiding for the rest of her life, once this started I couldn't put it down.