The past is a pool of water, and it sometimes sends up reflections that we don't want to see.Leiny, an attractive teenager, leaves the crumbling, vodka-fuelled gloom of post-Communist Russia for a better life in America.As a student in Washington, Leiny learns that American smiles and American freedoms can be misleading. Tom teaches her the hard way, after a party in her hall of residence. and Leiny decides to make a fresh start in New York.Here, skyscrapers and subway halls seem to promise a lot and deliver much less, and a passionate affair comes to a tragic end. Leiny's the survivor. but for what?Then Luis steps into her life. A new era of love and sexual fulfillment opens up. But can Luis accept the responsibilities that come with a mature relationship?Elena Serova's heart-wrenching story of love, passion and inconstancy offers an outsider's insight into the ways of Western society, as well as a woman's-eye view of the complex choices and emotional chains that constitute modern relationships. Was life better when it was simpler and more rigidly defined? Or is freedom, as we now experience it, the making of mankind? Reflections of the Past touches these and many other issues, just as surely as it touches our hearts.