Sign-In
Cart
The Rings: One Life. Two Names. A Story That Refused to Disappear.
Paperback
Series: The Rings Legacy, Book 1
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Oct 7 2026
Pages: 408
Weight: 1.20
Height: 0.84 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
She was born Sajo. She became Sergej. Decades later, she would entrust one young man with the truth of both lives.
Post-war Yugoslavia.
Among plum trees, tractors and the dangerous currents of the Danube, a young Sajo grows up haunted by the disappearance of her childhood friend Branko.
Then she discovers gymnastics.
More specifically-the still rings.
There is one problem.
Girls don't compete on them.
Determined to enter a world forbidden to her, Sajo travels to Belgrade and begins living as Sergej. What starts as a fight to compete becomes something far deeper: a journey across identity, borders and the expectations of everyone around her.
But the rings are only the beginning.
Sergej eventually leaves Yugoslavia and builds an extraordinary life in Britain-a life of languages, hotels, courtrooms, unlikely friendships, advocacy, love and carefully guarded secrets.
Then comes Mary.
And, many years later, Johnny.
A young playwright drifting dangerously close to the streets, Johnny finds an unlikely mentor in the ageing, eccentric Sajo-a formidable woman who drinks, argues philosophy, blasts music, claims connections to European royalty and refuses to give him straight answers about almost anything.
For five years, she teaches Johnny about courage, prejudice, history, faith, love and survival.
Then she leaves him one final lesson.
And one final promise to keep.
Her ashes must return to the Dunav-the Danube-where everything began.
Spanning Yugoslavia and Britain, THE RINGS is a sweeping story of identity, migration, friendship, grief and belonging-and of one extraordinary life that refuses to fit inside a single name.
For readers drawn to character-driven historical fiction, unconventional lives, LGBTQ+ stories, philosophical fiction and mysteries that cross generations.
Some people spend their lives searching for who they are.
Others must fight the world for the right to become it.
Also in
Literary Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977 (Loa #165): The Great American Novel / My Life as a Man / The Professor of Desire
Roth, Philip
Hardcover
John Updike: Novels 1978-1984 (Loa #339): The Coup / Rabbit Is Rich / The Witches of Eastwick
Updike, John
Hardcover
The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk
St Aubyn, Edward
Paperback