A thriller of a story, this book begins slowly and calmly, and builds with powerful tension to an uncertain ending. Based on a true story, Kristina has grown up in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), comfortable and unquestioning of the totalitarian system that governs and controls her life. Being a model citizen, the terror of the Secret Police, Stasi, has always been only a quietly frightening background noise in her otherwise peaceful, productive life. But when she falls in love with an American man, the Stasi begins to take increased interest in her and her frequent visitor. When she decides to leave the GDR, she discovers just how all powerful, arbitrary and menacing a police state can be for those who challenge the system. A great read that you will not want to put down until the suspense filled end. This compelling love story is inspired by the author’s own file the Stasi of East Germany kept on her.


Dorothe D. Kress, herself a former citizen of East Germany, weaves an accurate depiction of East German life with the frightening actions of the Stasi into a suspenseful story of love behind the Iron Curtain.


Title: The Risk: Love Behind the Iron Curtain
Author: Dorothe D. Kress
Publisher: Adelaide Books
Publisher Website: https://adelaidebooks.org/
Publisher Email: [email protected]
ISBN: 978-1956635935
Price: $22.30
Page Count: 408 pages
Format: Paperback

Description of the company: ADELAIDE BOOKS LLC is a New York based independent company dedicated to publishing literary fiction and creative nonfiction. It was founded in July 2017 as an imprint of the Adelaide Literary Magazine, with the aim to facilitate publishing of novels, memoirs, and collections of short stories, poems, and essays by contributing authors of our magazine and other qualified writers.We believe that in doing so, we best fulfill the mission outlined in Adelaide Magazine – “to promote writers we publish, helping both new and emerging, and established authors reaching a wider literary audience.”

Our motto is: We don’t publish classics, we make classics.