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Critics' Praise for A Single Desperate Prayer

An honest, sometimes raw account of a young girl's first years as a street kid that is both heartbreaking and life - affirming - A SINGLE DESPERATE PRAYER makes readers believe that faith can take you far. Ultimately A SINGLE DESPERATE PRAYER is an uplifting memoir of one person's journey to faith and how love guided her to it.

~ Susan Scheck for IndieReader

As a little girl, the author is sent to knock on neighbors' doors for drug-making ingredients. When the author is given a puppy, she lets it fall out the window, because there's not enough food for another mouth. Eventually orphaned—a blessing?—she thrives in state care. In a charming passage, Ritz discovers Jesus as she learns to read. That said, religion is not the subject of this book. Its a candid, clear-eyed guide into the everyday horror of a young life in post-Soviet Ukraine. The frank prose is tough, tender, and full of grace.

~ Eric Hoffer Book Award

More than a memoir, A Single Desperate Prayer is a riveting account of one resilient girl's life in a Crimean ghetto, replete with equal amounts of tragedy and triumph.

Told through the eyes of a child, the reader witnesses Ludmila's growth and maturation as she starts from practically nothing, learns how to beg in the streets, loses all of what little she had, is left to the wolves, and then saved by grace - all before her fifteenth birthday.

How hopeless can a child get? Ludmila got there

How did she escape her condition? A single desperate prayer.

This remarkable story appeals to a wide audience, from children to adults, from adoptive parents to those considering it. People who have been orphaned, or lost, or are looking for a way out. Those who need inspiration, and are searching for a practical way to find happiness and purpose in life.