Forty Autumns: A family's story of courage and survival on both sides of the

When Nina's mother Hanna was just 23 years old, she escaped to West Germany in the dead of night with nothing more than a small suitcase and the clothes on her back. It was the dawn of the Cold War. Hanna left her parents, seven siblings and everything she had ever known behind, never expecting to see her family again.

Forty Autumns traces the dramatic lives of the women in Nina's family on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Hanna eventually moved to America where she started her own family. Years after her mother's brave escape to the West, Nina found herself working as an Army Intelligence officer within Germany, undertaking dangerous, secretive operations just yards away from the family her mother left behind all those years ago.

Rich in drama and beautifully evocative, Forty Autumns is an incredible story that perfectly captures what it was like to live in a world divided in two.

Nina Willner is a former US Army intelligence officer who served in Berlin during the Cold War. Following a career in intelligence, Nina worked in Moscow, Minsk and Prague promoting human rights, children's causes and the rule of law for the US Government, non-profit organizations and a variety of charities. She currently lives in Istanbul, Turkey. Forty Autumns is her first book.