Maria Kostaki is a native of Moscow, Russia, but has spent most of her adult life on a plane from Athens, Greece to New York City and back. She holds a master’s in journalism from New York University, where she was a recipient of a grant from the Knight Foundation. She has worked as an editor and staff writer for Odysseymagazine in Athens and New York, and her nonfiction has appeared in publications including Elle Décor and Insider Magazine. Her fiction has appeared in Flashquake and Mediterranean Poetry.

When her mother, Anna, abandons her to move abroad with her new husband, Sasha is passed around her three grandparents in Cold War-era Moscow, attending first grade with a Lenin star pinned to her breast.

Five years later, Anna and her husband reappear and whisk Sasha off to a “better life” in Athens, Greece. But they are not the gallant rescuers they first appear to be, and Sasha soon finds herself caught between a violent stepfather and a psychologically abusive mother. In her struggle to survive in her new world, Sasha turns to a world of invisible friends—even as she continues to long for something real.

At turns haunting and uplifting, Pieces is the story of one girl’s survival and self-discovery—and her continual search for love in a world where she has been given none.