The Spy's Daughter

A Woman's Inspiring True Story of Courage and Survival

By Yael Dumitru Bosnoyan
(Available in 2007)

The Spy’s Daughter, at its heart, is a universal tale of the incredible power of love and hope. Set in Romania in the 1980’s, it is a detailed account of how the author and her mother survived the atrocities and terrible hardships under the last, and worst, European communist dictator. It is an adventure story like you’ve never read before, full of love, longing, betrayal, and courage.

Masterfully told, this remarkable, emotional memoir provides a fascinating and chilling look inside one of the last and worst of the European communist dictatorships. It is a world where sexual abuse and other crimes against girls and women are common. The pages reveal a fascinating and rare glimpse inside a society gone mad, led by the dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu and his sadistic wife, Elena, who dazzled Western leaders with scientific and industrial advancements, while secretly murdering their own people to achieve them. It is a story of constant danger, abandonment and escape, and of the psychological and sexual reckoning of a girl who grew up in a world that no American can truly comprehend.

Yael (pronounced Yaa-el) was born to a handsome Romanian couple in 1969, just as Ceausescu was solidifying his power and killing thousands of Romanians in a fit of insane paranoia. He severely limited food and medical supplies, declared that all unborn children were property of the state, and threatened death to any woman who practiced birth control. He used the Securitate - the deadly secret police - to enforce his reign of terror inside Romania. Yael's already nightmarish childhood takes a terrifying turn when her mother is accused of being a spy and the Securitate close in on the family.

She writes in riveting fashion about her complex relationship with her mother and their narrow escape to America, a new world with its own dangers. But, even as Yael begins to heal psychologically, aided by a love affair with a mysterious, caring man who slowly helps her regain her trust in men, ghosts from her past suddenly reappear. It isn't until the final page that we witness the outcome of her epic struggle to finally break free of the powerful nightmarish bonds that have bound her since birth. The ending will likely surprise you.

About the Author

Today, Yael is the owner of two thriving businesses in Hermosa Beach, California, just south of Los Angeles. She is a graduate of the California State University at Northridge, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. She is currently working on her next book.