There are somersaults and there are somersaults. Physically … no big deal. Lots of people can do them. This book is about the other kind of somersaults – through life. In this case, from a little girl plunked into the mid-fifties in socialist Czechoslovakia to a rebel at school with beliefs twisted and turned by social storms. Then in 1968, her family lives through morphing into socialism with a human face, the consequent invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies, and ultimately, the Russian occupation. And eventually, for many ordinary people, the reality of the so-called Velvet Revolution of 1989.

When the girl grows into a young woman, she fights with traditions and old thinking. Plenty of humour, the discovery of limits, many sides of the same coin, the power of friendship, stepping into worlds of taboo, and challenging one’s own fear – every somersault has consequences. Intimate, funny, honest.

If you enjoyed this audiobook, try listening to the sequel: Czech Mate