The Briar Club

The chapter includes recipes for Kitty’s Medovik, Lina’s Eight-Layer Honey Cloud Cake, and Kirill’s Rassolnik.

It is now March 1954, and the story turns to Grace as she recalls the reason why she moved into Briarwood House. Her attic apartment overlooks a square where she can watch humanity on display. The sight fascinates her. Grace writes postcards to her sister Kitty but never mails them because Kitty has been dead for 12 years. Grace’s entire family starved to death during the siege of Leningrad. Grace currently has her hands full, trying to cheer up Claire after Sydney failed to run away with her on Halloween. The Sutherland in-laws descended on her house, leaving her trapped. At the same time, Grace is consoling Harland by having sex with him after Bea’s most recent rejection of his marriage proposal. She thinks, “He wouldn’t be too amused, this soon-to-be-ex G-man, knowing he’d just rolled out of bed with Comrade Galina Stepanova of the USSR. Former, anyway” (331).

Grace first came to the US as a Soviet spy under deep cover with a fake husband named Kirill. They were tasked with getting information on the United States’ flight program at the Edwards Air Force Base in California.