WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW
 |
| “I'd like to know how anyone can write the truth about us if we've never met.”- The Lost Crown, Sarah Miller |
Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. Like the fingers on a hand--first headstrong Olga; then Tatiana, the tallest; Maria the most hopeful for a ring; and Anastasia, the smallest. These are the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, grand duchesses living a life steeped in tradition and privilege. They are each on the brink of starting their own lives, at the mercy of royal matchmakers. The summer of 1914 is that precious last wink of time when they can still be sisters together--sisters that link arms and laugh, sisters that share their dreams and worries, and flirt with the officers of their imperial yacht.
But in a gunshot the future changes for these sisters and for Russia.
As World War I ignites across Europe, political unrest sweeps Russia. First dissent, then disorder, mutiny, and revolution. For Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, the end of their girlhood together is colliding with the end of more than they ever imagined.
At the same time hopeful and hopeless, naive and wise, the voices of these sisters become a chorus singing the final song of Imperial Russia. Impeccably researched and utterly fascinating, this novel by acclaimed author Sarah Miller recounts the final days of Imperial Russia with lyricism, criticism and true compassion.
I don't know how this novel escaped my notice for so long. Well, actually I do. I hate historical romance and princess books and especially Romanov fictional books, because all of them are notoriously bad. Of course, maybe I just encountered unusually shitty ones and am taking it out on all of them, which isn't fair to them. In fact, I have a rule- no fictional books about real people- which is okay to break in certain situations but for the most part I just end up disappointed (See Gilt and Tarnish and my ratings on the Prisoner of Night and Fog duology). And I went into this book expected it to be okay or downright bad. And my expectations were exceeded completely, and I left with a huge amount of respect for Sarah Miller.
I could tell she actually cared deeply about doing her subjects justice. While some of the girls' traits did come across as a bit historical fiction cliche, they worked well with all of the sisters' individual personalities and felt believable She didn't attempt to manipulate each sister into being something she wasn't in real life because the author wanted her to be that way. Even when she added certain things (like Olga's unusual perceptiveness) she was sure to note it in her author's note and admit that she did it for the sake of the story, something I admired and could forgive her for. She really endeavored to capture each girls' individuality and the way they felt about certain things, like their mother or father or the state of the country. I also liked that Miller kept in the girls' religiosity, something that was a huge definer in their lives, instilled in them by their father and mother. Rasputin also wasn't demonized in this book, which is realistic given that there is evidence the girls liked him and respected him deeply as both a faith healer and a holy man.
Are there issues? Of course. The girls' voices blend together to the point where, despite each having defining traits, I still had a hard time remembering whose chapter I was on. For some reason, though, I wasn't really that bothered by it. Also, the names were inconsistently transliterated- Nicholas, for example, is Nicholas some places and Nikolai other places. I can forgive this one, since most in the Western world know him as Tsar Nicholas II and not Tsar Nikolai II but the Tsarvich is Aleksey and not Alexei or even Alexis (the proper English equivalent of Aleksey and likely what he would have been called had he been on the throne). Of course, transliteration is confusing, but I wish she stuck to one system and not bounced around. Also, occasionally the book does suffer from historical name dropping. Like in the case of one particularly silted piece of dialogue, when Alexandra mentions that her "grandmother, Queen Victoria," taught her how to make beds, when there would have been no reason for her specifically say Queen Victoria because it was common knowledge that Victoria was her grandmother. Not that big a deal, but still, that stuck out to me.
Also, a correction- Alix is not a nickname for Alexandra, it was her name at birth. Back then, men and women often changed their name or went by a middle name when ruling, because it made them more relatable to the people of their country. It's the same reason why England's never had a King David or King Albert.
The epilogue and author's note was also one of the best I've seen. She does not give any airplay to the ridiculous "Anastasia escaped" idea- though she doesn't ever explicitly say it's BS, she makes it clear that all bodies were found and no one could have gotten out alive. I loved that- too often authors writing about the Romanovs feel the need to fall into that trap, and is the reason why I avoid most Romanov fiction in the first place.
But overall, I really liked this book. And I definitely would have loved it if I was first getting into either historical fiction or the Romanov sisters. While the writing was a bit too juvenile and the story was kind of repetitive (at times, it felt like I was reading a fictional version of the Rapport book I mentioned earlier), and I did feel like it rushed a bit, it was still a novel I'd recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about these girls. It's not perfect, but it's good enough, and by far one of the best princess books I've ever read. I wish Sarah Miller would write more of these kinds of books. I'd read them.
8.5 out of 10
If you liked this book, you may also like:
No comments:
Post a Comment