Award-winning author and part-time Parkite Nina Romano will introduce a former Russian ballerina named Anya to readers during the signing of her new book “Dark Eyes” on Feb. 9 and 11 at Dolly’s Bookstore, 528 Main St.

The book is about Anya, an unwed mother of a neurologically challenged child, who meets Andrei, a police photographer, at a murder scene. From there, the two try to solve the mystery of this and another murder, according to Romano.

“The book started as a short story, and then grew from there,” she said. “It was mostly about Anya, the ballerina, and her life before she meets Andrei. And everything took place before ‘Dark Eyes’ actually takes place.”

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Romano, a 2016 Independent Publisher Book Award winner, showed the story to a friend.

That was a surprise, because we thought that everything would be a little hush hush if you asked about communism.” Nina Romano, award-winning author

“After she read it, she said, ‘I hate to say this, but you have to cut 60 pages,'” Romano said. “I almost passed out, but I did it. And she was right, because all those pages was backstory. I didn’t need it, and it didn’t add anything to the full story.”

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Romano set the book in Russia when St. Petersburg was known as Leningrad, because she loves to write historical fiction, which is evident in her other books that include the “Wayfarer Trilogy” and her “Darby’s Quest” trilogy.

“We were in Russia a couple of times, before the pandemic, and my guy (husband Felipe), the world traveler, took me and I became enchanted by the city,” she said. “We have been there a couple of times, and attended the ballets while we were there. And we loved it.”

During their time in Russia, the couple would also take tours.

“I just found the city so beautiful, and the people were so open to speak,” she said. “That was a surprise, because we thought that everything would be a little hush hush if you asked about communism. But since Felipe reads the New York Times cover to cover, and listens to European news channels, he had questions for our tour guides, and they were quite open about everything when they spoke to us.”

Russia’s history with ballet, as well as having granddaughters who take ballet classes, inspired Anya’s character, Romano said.

“I always loved ballet, and Felipe and I have tickets to the ballet and the opera season in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida,” she said. “I also taught gymnastics and I taught dance when I was a physical education teacher many years ago. Although I was teaching physical education, I did a couple of productions that combined modern dance, gymnastics and ballet. So, I’ve always loved it, and it was something I wanted to research.”

Andrei, however, required less research than Anya, Romano said.

“Andrei came to me in full character, which is amazing,” she said. “He’s a crypto Jew, which means he wasn’t going to come out and say he’s Jewish, because the book takes place right after the time of Stalin.”

Joseph Stalin, the former premier of the now defunct Soviet Union, cooperated with Nazi Germany in 1939, and began purging high-profile Jews from the Kremlin, Romano said.

He also instigated what is known as the Anti-Cosmopolitan Campaign in 1848, which most historians call an antisemitic purge, she said.

“I wanted to write something, because I just find the whole history of Russia, and the history of the Jews, fascinating,” she said. 

While pulling her notes together, Romano didn’t quite know if the story would work. Then, while on one of her cruises, she met Assistant Professor Vladimir Kalmykov of Dobroliubov State Linguistic University that is located in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.

“We had tea together,” she said. “I discussed the story with him, and gave him the ‘elevator pitch.’ Then I asked if what I had was a plausible plot, and he said, ‘Yes. It sounds like it would go well.'”

After getting the “green light” from Kalmykov, Romano returned home and finished writing the novel.

“It took me several rewrites to get it to where I wanted it to, because I had never written a mystery or suspense thriller,” she said. “And I didn’t want to fall into writing the tropes of those types of stories. I just wanted to take the story for what it was and write what I think it should be.”

Romano turned to the social-media platform X, formerly Twitter, to connect with other mystery authors.

“If I’m not writing, I’m reading,” she said. “And I have come across some wonderful mystery books by great writers.”

Romano took a steady approach while writing the book.

“Mystery is different from writing historical fiction, and the research is a wonderful part of it,” she said. “So I would write until I needed to do some research. And then after I did the research, I’d write again, until I needed to do more research.”

One of the concerns Romano had while writing “Dark Eyes” was to make sure the historic timeline was accurate.

“So, you will see throughout the book, I will have a date and time at the top of some of the pages,” she said. “And at the beginning of a chapter, I’ll also put in where the scene takes place within the plot. I thought that would clarify things for the reader, but also keep things straight for me.”

Romano also included a glossary in the book.

“I thought that would be helpful, because I have a lot of Jewish, Yiddish and Russian words in the story,” she said. “I do make sure, at least I tried, that the words in the book were understood through context, replies or questions. But I have a friend who said the glossary was good, because there were a couple of words that she had to look up.”

Signing books at Dolly’s Bookstore is always a pleasure for Romano.

“All the salespeople are sweet as can be, and they are always helpful and kind,” she said. “You also get to meet many interesting people from Idaho, Arizona or other places, who are all here to ski or something else. And when you are face-to-face, one-on-one, it’s easier to talk about your book and find people who are interested in reading the book.”

Although Romano is currently working on promoting “Dark Eyes,” she has finished “Star in the Summer Morning,” the second book of her “Darby’s Quest” trilogy, which follows the story of Darby McPhee, a young woman who lives in northeastern New Mexico in the 1870s, and Cayo Bradley, who was abducted and raised by the Jicarilla Apache nation. 

“I just sent it to my editor, and she’s going to send it back to me to do some of the edits,” Romano said. “Then we’ll get it ready for print.”