Katherine (Katya) Vogt is now an old woman living in Winnipeg, but her story begins in Russia in 1910, on a wealthy Mennonite estate In the wake of the First World War, the tensions between the landlords and their disgruntled workers who toil the land begin to engulf Russia and her community, leading to an unspeakable act of violence that ends her innocent world In the difficult years that follow, Katya struggles to survive and tries to come to terms with the terrible events that befell her and her family