The Dial

In a small town on the Adriatic, the past returns easily - all it takes is recognizing yourself in someone else's story.

1920s.
After the Revolution and the Civil War, Maria, a Russian émigrée, settles on the Yugoslav coast. What remains of her life are diaries, letters, photographs - fragments shaped by a turbulent era, and a secret she herself never fully understood.

2020s.
A century later, Rita arrives in the same town with her mother, after fleeing a Russia that is rapidly unraveling. A job assisting an American journalist seems ordinary enough, until Maria's archive ends up in her hands.

What begins as routine work with documents gradually turns into something far more personal and dangerous: other people's lives, hidden motives, an old tragedy, money, power - and the growing sense that the past never disappeared. It was simply waiting for someone to open the box and begin reading.

Through letters and diaries, Rita begins to see not only another woman's story, but her own reflection - and it becomes harder to pretend that this has nothing to do with her.

The Dial is a novel about memory and exile, about choices made without clear answers, and about what happens when the past can no longer be kept at a safe distance.

Set against the Adriatic coast - sun-bleached streets, stone houses, heavy summer air, and the endless hum of cicadas.

Published here chapter by chapter.