Maryona is a true story of a girl coming of age in Russian-occupied Lithuania. Maryona's father dies before she is born. When the last of her siblings immigrate from Lithuania to the United States in 1907, Maryona is left alone as a child to care for her mother. Her mother taught all Maryona's siblings to read the Bible written in Lithuanian, when government schools taught only Russian and use of the Lithuanian alphabet was banned. Raised in an area known to resist the Russians, she and her mother must deal with opposition from government officials. Can they survive the persecution of the occupiers? Can they survive being shunned by their community? Will Maryona find a way to reach her brothers and sister again? For someone like her, is love even possible? In a world torn apart by conflict, will she survive?