To help celebrate some of their recent and upcoming releases, the amazing team at Fierce Reads has put together a number of street teams for each book, all tasked with a variety of interesting challenges to complete in whatever way they see fit. I'm a proud member of Team Sekret, so today and a couple of days next week I'll be posting character profiles, favorite quotes and scenes, and a few pieces of Sekret-related artwork to hopefully get those of you who have yet to read Sekret by Lindsay Smith excited to do so!
One of the interesting aspects of this story for me was the Russian setting, in part because I was lucky enough to spend a few days in Russia last fall. Even though I never made it to Moscow where the book takes place, it was still fascinating for me to picture the places where events unfolded having experienced the beauty and opulence of Russia firsthand.
I thought it might be fun to give you guys a quick taste of some of what Russia has to offer, so below are a few pictures from my trip that really show the old-world grandeur of it. All my pictures are from St. Petersburg rather than Moscow–forgive me for that, I'm a bit OCD about copyright issues so I didn't want to grab any pictures of Moscow that didn't belong to me–but I hope they give you a feel for bits and pieces of main character Yulia's world nonetheless!
RUSSIA
(click to enlarge)
Russia was extraordinary, with some of the most beautiful artwork and architecture I've ever seen, so I hope you keep some of these images in your minds when you pick up Sekret!
One of street team challenges was to create a playlist for the book, but in all honesty, I'm absolutely miserable at that sort of thing, so despite the fact that music plays a huge role in the story and a playlist would probably be easy enough to put together, I'm just going to own up to this failure. One of my favorite moments of our time in St. Petersburg though was hearing a men's chorus utilize the astounding acoustics in one of the pavilions at Catherine's Palace to sing a traditional Russian folk song for the tourists.
The below video is courtesy of K Barber on You Tube and features the exact group we saw when we were there, so I wanted to share it. Please ignore all the people taking pictures and flapping their hands about, it's obviously not a professional video, but I thought the sound quality was pretty nice. I hope you all enjoy, and stay tuned for more Sekret goodies this week!
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SEKRET
An empty mind is a safe mind.
Yulia's father always taught her to hide her thoughts and control her emotions to survive the harsh realities of Soviet Russia. But when she's captured by the KGB and forced to work as a psychic spy with a mission to undermine the U.S. space program, she's thrust into a world of suspicion, deceit, and horrifying power. Yulia quickly realizes she can trust no one--not her KGB superiors or the other operatives vying for her attention--and must rely on her own wits and skills to survive in this world where no SEKRET can stay hidden for long.
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