Just a cover I designed.

1947 - A Georgian named Vardo is arrested and sentenced to 10 years in Russian prison for a crime uncommitted. Vardo must quickly accept that she, like her doomed counterparts, are no more than walking corpses in the vast archipelago of prisons in the Soviet Union. And through letting go of what made her feel alive, she will learn to live among the dead.
She fears not corrupting her soul. Within the bodies of the dead and the damned, the soul no longer resides.

Based upon the mass incarceration of the Soviet people in the early 20th century, it was the most barbaric treatment of ones own people any superpower ever inflicted in modern times. 60 million people of all ethnicities lost their lives in the Soviet Gulag system. Those who survived often found they died there anyway. Their past lives were gone, their loved ones either resentful, dead, or forever unreachable, and the harsh landscapes even prevented many from ever leaving, in some areas they still reside today.
However, many discovered upon survival that who they were before their arrest was simply gone. Dead. The ones who emerged were transformed into new creatures whom would never fit into society as before. They bore witness to mankind at it's absolute worst and simply could never move on.
Many lost faith in mankind. Yet others found faith in each other. And for many, that faith kept them alive.

Vardo in this story would be a misfit. She would be female, a Caucasian among Russians, and without tattoos. To ensure her survival she has to both place her faith in others as well as demonize herself to do what is necessary. Whether she emerges alive or not is not the main question. Essentially, she's already dead. The main question is how far faith can truly take someone. How much does one have to see and do to lose it all: your faith, your trust, your humanity, and your soul and ability to empathize. And in the Gulag system, would that be a hindrance or a liberation?