Olga Yunter was born in July 1900 in a remote frontier post in southern Siberia. A girlhood played out against the backdrop of the China trade -- brimming with tea, silk, gold and furs, nomadic herdsmen, and adventures on horseback -- changed forever, when, at seventeen, Olga joined her brothers in their fight against the Bolsheviks. Death and retribution followed. Olga was forced to flee to China, rubies sewn into her petticoats, to save herself. In China she was to find peace only for a short time before the guns of the Second World War drew close and Olga would have to flee once more. She would never hear from her family in Siberia again. From the comfort of her family to the terror of revolution and war, journeys across vast continents in exile, Olga's Story is the breathtaking and heartbreaking tale of the author's grandmother, lived at the heart of the twentieth century.

Stephanie Williams has spent the last ten years piecing together her grandmother's story. A journalist and author of two works of non-fiction she lives in London.