Coming May 1, 2025
Go On Pretending
Three generations of women battle against the tides of history, from segregated 1950s America to the fall of the USSR and the rise of revolutionary Rojava.
By Alina Adams
Rose Janowitz is a pioneer in the 1950s golden age of television, as she navigates the transition from radio to TV soap operas. But beneath the glitz and glamor lies a web of secrets. Rose's radical past and her hidden romance with Jonas Cain, the African-American leading man who made Guiding Light a hit on radio. How long will Rose be able to hide Jonas Cain’s identity—and their romantic relationship—from the public, and from Irna Phillips, the formidable doyenne who invented the soap-opera, a woman who makes—and breaks—professional careers on a whim.
In the 1980s, Rose’s daughter Emma Kagan abandons her privileged life in the USSR as the daughter of high-profile American defectors, to return to the country of her parents’ birth just as Mikhail Gorbachev announces the new openness known as glasnost. In the US, Emma navigates the hypocrisy and inherent contradictions of the political left and the right, as the collapse of the Soviet Union sends her scrambling for survival. Emma’s search for a place to fully belong finds her looking for personal freedom in the strangest of places—with unexpected and often life-threatening results.
In 2012, Libby, Emma's daughter and Rose's granddaughter, embarks on a bold journey to Rojava, Syria, joining the Women’s Revolution. Her search for utopia pulls Rose and Emma into the fray, where family secrets long buried are unearthed amid the anarchy of war.
New York Times bestselling author Alina Adams brings her unique perspective as a Soviet immigrant to the US who mastered English through soap operas to this multilayered tale. With a background in broadcast communications and a history of writing compelling narratives, Adams captures the essence of each era with authenticity and emotional depth. From the author of the acclaimed historical novel My Mother’s Secret, Go On Pretending offers a powerful exploration of the struggles for personal freedom and the enduring strength of family bonds.
Advance Praise
I was instantly drawn into Alina Adams' fascinating book GO ON PRETENDING as it opens with the birth of Guiding Light by its founder, Irna Philips, and I was an actress on that show for 26 years. But the book is better than any soap opera as the plot spirals from America to Soviet Russia with great characters and an amazing amount of historical research. It is a page-turner with characters you love to hate and questions that are all answered.
–Tina Sloan, Guiding Light actress, award-winning author of CHANGING SHOES, CHASING CLEOPATRA, CHASING OTHELLO, CHASING CZARS
Go On Pretending hooks you on the very first page then takes you on an emotional ride through history with generations of unique and highly engaging characters. An epic drama not to be missed!
–Kyra Davis Lurie, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Mann
Go On Pretending is a sweeping historical saga bridging three countries and three generations of indomitable women who take enormous risks in support of artistic freedom, racial equality, free speech and, most of all, the right to love without prejudice. An intense and enthralling read.
–Shelly Sanders, Bestselling author, Daughters of the Occupation
Adams’ newest novel stretches from the 1950s to the 2010s and spans characters, countries, and continents. The characters’ unspooling lives—so different on the surface but deceptively similar underneath—ask us to confront questions personal and political. A fascinating, important, thought-provoking read.
–Addison Armstrong, author of The Light of Luna Park and The War Librarian
Go On Pretending is a fascinating, romantic, and inspiring look at the ways that women's struggles and ethnic and racial identities have played out across time and continents. Mixing real-life figures and events into these fictional women's lives makes them all the more relevant, while illuminating the grand sweep of history as well as the truth that the political is personal."
–Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of When Women Invented Television
Alina Adams is the NYT-bestselling author of soap-opera tie-ins, figure-skating mysteries, romance, and historical novels. Born in Odessa, USSR, Adams immigrated to the United States at age seven and learned to speak English by watching American Soap Operas. After receiving her B.A. and M.A. in broadcast communications at San Francisco State University, Adams worked in television as a writer and researcher. Years later she penned the As The World Turns book tie-in, Oakdale Confidential, which became a New York Times bestseller. Her first historical novel, The Nesting Dolls, is a Soviet-Jewish historical novel published by HarperCollins in July 2020. My Mother’s Secret, published by History Through Fiction in November 2022, provides readers a rare glimpse into the world's first Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan while exploring universal themes of identity, love, loss, war, and parenthood. Adams lives in New York City with her husband and their three children.