** Two of these stories involve the Romanov family and that time period (I'll let you guess which two 😉)
but the last one is a Cold War era YA romance.
Romanov by Nadine Brandes
My name is Anastasia . . . The history books say I died . . . They don’t know the half of it.
Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them, and he’s hunted Romanov before.
Nastya’s only chances of saving herself and her family are either to release the spell and deal with the consequences, or to enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya has only dabbled in magic, but it doesn’t frighten her half as much as her growing attraction to Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her.
That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad . . . and he’s on the other.
★★★★1/2
From an early age, Anastasia Romanov started receiving lessons in spell casting from her mother's mysterious and controversial advisor, Grigori Rasputin. But now Rasputin is dead and he seemed to be the only one with any sort of long-lasting treatment for her brother Alexei's hemophilia. Now, with the family secreted away in imprisonment, what is to be done?
At the start of Brandes' Romanov, the dethroned Tsar Nicholas gets word that he is being transferred to a home in Moscow. It is decided that his wife Alex and daughter Maria will go with him, while daughters Anastasia, Olga, and Tatiana will stay behind with brother Alexei until he is once again strong enough for travel.
Impatience was the grim reaper of all true victories....Rhythm was a fierce weapon against despair.
Before his departure, Nicholas leaves Anastasia with a very important Matryoshka (nesting) doll, instructing her to guard it at all costs, for it may hold their very last chance at survival. Anastasia is aware there is a magic seal around the doll that she does not know how to open, but her father assures her that when the time is right, the doll will guide her... but also urges her to save the spell until the very second it is most needed.
Anastasia figures the best course of action is to "hide" the doll out in the open, acting as if it's just decor on a shelf, but during a routine Bolshevik contraband check, it ends up being the only item confiscated from her room. Crafty Anastasia quickly puts together a plan to sniff out who took it and how to get it back. She first suspects the soldier Zash. In their initial meetings, Zash presents a somewhat icy demeanor, which Anastasia, not surprisingly, finds off-putting...even though she admits she likes the overall way handsome Zash is put together. But it's tough to break in a friendship there, once she hears Zash confess that he believes her father ruined the country. Anastasia, perhaps biasedly, believes this is an unfair opinion of the tsar.
I wanted to understand him. But he was wrong about us, too. We'd slept on cots, made our own beds, worn simple Russian clothing, and adored the Alexander Palace filled with wood furniture and rustic necessities rather than the gold walls of the Catherine Palace. Papa and Mama had raised us to love family, not luxury. Papa didn't want his throne back. All we craved was to be released to build a cottage somewhere. But I gathered that Zash wouldn't believe that any more than he believed my kindness genuine.
Even so, in time a melting occurs within Zash, especially after he hears some of Ana's personal history, and discovers they have a shared love for nature & outdoor adventures. A friendship / quiet attraction slowly grows between the two. Zash even begins to find ways to sneak help to Alexei and "Nastya", as he calls her. But what is he to do if his CO assigns him to the execution team?
So, yes, once again Brandes weaves a magic system into an actual historical event, as she did with Fawkes. But here, it takes a little while for the magic element to be build up enough to be really noticeable. Sure, there's a mention here and there of magic dolls and bottles of spell ink... and there's brief mention of Bolsheviks hunting down spell masters, forcing them to work for Lenin or face execution.... just so you know it's not a pure historical fiction you're reading, but the meat of the magic element doesn't really fall in until about 19 chapters in. Once you get there, the imagery is a beautiful thing! But while you're on your journey, be warned, Brandes has some heartbreaking scenes to drag your heart through with good-soul characters you might get a teensy bit attached to before they're ripped from this world.
"You find joy in so many little things. For once... I want to see joy find you. Surprise you. You deserve it."
~ Zash to Nastya
Alexander Palace, where the Romanov family "roughed it" lol
(compared to Catherine Palace)
It took me a while to get around to pulling this from my TBR pile, but in some ways it turned out to be a surprisingly fitting read to get into during a worldwide pandemic! (How often do you get to say that!) There are scenes describing the Romanov family being trapped indoors, all the windows of the house white-washed over, the family often only allowed an hour or less a day of outdoor time. The family, in this environment, learns to look for light and joy in whatever form they can, while being kept away from the outside world. Sound familiar?!
We bottled every pinhole of light and sunshine as though they were spells of old --- from a soldier's smile to a new tree swing to an extra five minutes outside. I had to make a daily list in my mind so when (Commandant) Avdeev was particularly drunk or when the unkind Bolsheviks pillaged our food, I still had encouragement to remind me that humanity and joy existed. Summer heat blew the storms in, bringing gusts of torment with them. The heat pulled us outside into the shade of the poplars one moment and then the gale drenched us the next. "Everyone inside," Avdeev hollered, exiting his alcohol-ridden office.
"We don't mind the rain!" I threw my arms wide and embraced the drenching.
By the end of this story, Brandes actually had me half-thinking her re-imagined ending was entirely plausible, magic system and all!
The Curse of the Romanovs by Staton Rabin
Alexei Romanov, heir to the Russian throne, is in deadly danger.
It¹s 1916, the struggling Russian people are tired of war and are blaming their Romanov rulers for it, and some are secretly plotting to murder the young heir and his family. But nobody outside the palace knows that Alexei suffers from a terrible bleeding disease, hemophilia, which threatens to finish him off even before the family¹s enemies can. The only person able to help Alexei is the evil and powerful religious mystic Rasputin -- and now Rasputin is trying to kill him too! Desperate, Alexei flees through time to New York City in 2010, using a method taught to him by the mad monk himself.
In New York, Alexei meets smart and sassy Varda Rosenberg, and discovers she is a distant cousin. Varda is working on a gene therapy cure for hemophilia, as the disease still runs in the family. When Alexei learns that history shows that his entire family will be assassinated in 1918, he and Varda travel back in time to the Russian Revolution, with Rasputin hot on their heels. Will they be able to rescue Alexei¹s family before it¹s too late?
Staton Rabin lets Alexei tell his own riveting story in a rousing adventure with stunning surprises -- a movingly authentic look at royalty and revolution in the days of the tsars.
It¹s 1916, the struggling Russian people are tired of war and are blaming their Romanov rulers for it, and some are secretly plotting to murder the young heir and his family. But nobody outside the palace knows that Alexei suffers from a terrible bleeding disease, hemophilia, which threatens to finish him off even before the family¹s enemies can. The only person able to help Alexei is the evil and powerful religious mystic Rasputin -- and now Rasputin is trying to kill him too! Desperate, Alexei flees through time to New York City in 2010, using a method taught to him by the mad monk himself.
In New York, Alexei meets smart and sassy Varda Rosenberg, and discovers she is a distant cousin. Varda is working on a gene therapy cure for hemophilia, as the disease still runs in the family. When Alexei learns that history shows that his entire family will be assassinated in 1918, he and Varda travel back in time to the Russian Revolution, with Rasputin hot on their heels. Will they be able to rescue Alexei¹s family before it¹s too late?
Staton Rabin lets Alexei tell his own riveting story in a rousing adventure with stunning surprises -- a movingly authentic look at royalty and revolution in the days of the tsars.
★★★1/2
While most post-Romanov execution-based historical fiction likes to focus on possible alternate fates of the Grand Duchess Anastasia, Staton Rabin's The Curse of the Romanovs chooses to experiment with new life paths for hemophiliac heir to the throne, Alexei. The novel is inspired by the fact that prior to 2007, when this book came out, bones of Alexei and one of his sisters had yet to be positively identified, leading many to hypothesis that perhaps there were one or more of the family to survive the execution. All of the remains of the family have since been accounted for.
Rabin presents the novel as a journal Alexei is keeping while on his adventure, a place where he can share his family's story in his own words, with the preface of The Curse of the Romanovs serving as an opening note to the journal, explaining that in the event of his death the notebook should be sent to Varda Rosenberg for safe keeping.
The novel opens in 1916, when twelve year old Alexei is facing threats from every direction, including a once trusted family friend, the "priest" (but not actually) Grigory Efimovich, aka Rasputin. In this novel, Rabin poses the "what if" of Alexei maybe having a hand in the execution plot of Rasputin. When Rasputin himself gets wind of this, he hunts Alexei down, attacks him... but in that moment of near death, Alexei decides to try out a trick Rasputin once taught him, transporting himself to 2010 New York City. It is there that Alexei meets Varda Rosenberg, a fifteen year old distant cousin of the Romanov family, who just happens to be trying to work out a cure for hemophilia, the very condition that killed her father. Alexei time-leapt before news of the planned execution of his family got out, but once Varda gives him the unfortunate history lesson, he asks her to help him leap back to his time to try to save his family before it's too late.
In the spirit of readers being real with each other, bookworm to bookworm, I will admit this plot has its flaws. I was left with plenty of questions... just one as an example: at 15, how the heck does Varda have an ENTIRE DNA TESTING LAB just chillin' IN HER BEDROOM?!! Was it a hand-me-down from Jimmy Neutron or something?!
If you're a history purist, this particular book is maybe not your scene. But if you fall into the categories of 1) know absolutely nothing about this period 2) know just enough to keep up or 3) know ALL about it but don't mind a temporary jaunt into alternate history / historical fantasy, maybe stick around for the end credits because, taken for what it is, this is a pretty fun ride (*minus the awkward almost-romance building that, for me, just got in the way of a good adventure). Get ready for some pretty cool chase sequences between Alexei & Rasputin, one being a full-on moving train rooftop scenario!
There's a pretty lengthy but fascinating afterword on the true history that inspired scenes or discussions within the novel. Some of the topics Rabin touches upon:
* Rasputin was said to be the one person who had any sort of reliable remedy (though not full cure) for the real Alexei's hemophilia. How did his healing work? Was it prayer, hypnotism, some sort of guided meditation or visualization? Historians are still unsure.
* How are the British and Russian thrones related? Well, for one, Queen Victoria's daughter, Beatrice, was Alexei's great-aunt (and also a carrier for hemophilia).
* When Russia entered WW2, it went up against Germany, Tsarina Alix's homeland (technically). The Kaiser was "Cousin Willy" to her. People whispered that the tsarina was possibly a German spy. Though it is true she was born in Germany, after her mother (Britian's Princess Alice) died of diptheria at age 35, Alix was actually largely raised by grandmother Queen Victoria, leading Alix to feel a stronger bond with Britain than Germany for the majority of her life.
With the time travel aspect, this is a fun one to refer to to introduce early middle-grade / YA readers to the genre of historical fiction --- and the topic of the Romanov line specifically --- without overwhelming them with too much fact at once. Rabin writes a strong enough adventure story, young readers are likely to go investigating the true story for themselves shortly after they breeze through these pages.
The Boy on the Bridge by Natalie Standiford
As June approaches--when Laura must return to the United States--Alexei asks Laura to marry him. She's only nineteen and doesn't think she's ready to settle down. But what if Alexei is the love of her life? How can she leave him behind? If she has a chance to change his life, to rescue him from misery, shouldn't she take it?
★★★1/2
American college student Laura Reid spends a semester abroad in Cold War era Russia. Laura expects to spend her time learning Russian, having a great time touring cities and taking in local culture. Arriving in January, two weeks into her semester she and roommate Karen are freezing and struggling to find food each day. Laura discovers she is only allowed to call her parents twice during the semester, calls that have to be planned weeks in advance, and the out-of-pocket cost is insane. With another five months left in the term, they worry how they will survive. Karen was excited to experience Russia's colorful punk rock scene, but where these girls are at everything appears as dull, grey, bland conformity.
During her semester at Leningrad State University (now known as St. Petersburg University), Laura and her fellow exchange students are housed in a separate dorm away from the main campus to keep the "bad Western influence" away from local students (which, as the reader, had me question why, in that case, such a place would have an exchange program at all?). One day, while crossing the bridge that links the two buildings, Laura is attacked by gypsy women soliciting her for money. They get aggressive when she explains she doesn't have any extra money for them. A scared Laura is soon rescued by Alexei Nikolayev, a struggling artist who goes by the nickname Alyosha. Alyosha chases the gypsies off and explains to Laura that they'll stay away as long as she uses the word "militia". As a thank-you gesture, Laura offers to help him improve his English (while at the same time he'll help her become more fluent in conversational Russian). He appreciates her offer and agrees, but warns her that they will have to be careful because the government is suspicious of Russians spending too much time with American tourists or students.
He spoke in a low voice, almost a whisper. "Any phone booth near your dorm is sure to be bugged. They like to know what the foreign students are up to."
"Who are they?"
He flashed her a skeptical, pitying look, as if to say You really don't know? And she did know what he meant, sort of. She'd heard stories of rooms that were bugged. American students sent home for fraternizing with the wrong people. Russian friends getting reasons that struck Americans as arbitrary and mysterious, impossible to understand. This was a totalitarian government, after all, and the sense that the government could do anything to anyone without explanation led to rampant paranoia.
Keep in mind this is a YA novel, so it takes virtually no time for these two to jump feet first into an all-consuming romance. And, my word, the naivety of Laura! Early on in the book, she explains that a documentary she watched in 9th grade first stirred her passion to study Russian language and culture.
She decided that day to study Russian, the language of violence, terror, and absurdity. She knew she would never be bored. And someday she would go to Russia to see it all for herself.
But the way she goes on to talk about the country later almost makes it seem as if she views the locals as something of a cute, quaint novelty. It gets even worse later when she comes off as being pretty disrespectful of her host country, pointing out aspects of the culture as "dirty" or "gross". She's also wildly out of touch with the kinds of hardships the rest of the world tends to face ("luxuries" for locals in this story are often things such as oranges, fresh store-bought bread, or bottled mineral water because the tap water is so contaminated with parasites).
Though Laura is a college freshman, her teen brain still strongly shows through. She earns her dream trip to study abroad in a country she's been fascinated with for ages, and what does she do? She blows off everyone and everything except Alyosha. When she does bother to attend classes and take a stab at finishing homework, her essays all sound as if they were written by a jr. high student. She actually ends all her papers with a literal "The End". Whaa?! In her defense, I guess one could argue maybe because she is studying Russian, she is perhaps writing the essays in Russian but her proficiency in that language is so low that when she writes and it's translated back in English for the reader, it comes off extremely juvenile. Maybe? But still. It had me wondering what was up with that.
I was left with mixed feelings regarding Alyosha. He seemed like a pretty friendly, caring guy at first, but Standiford does a good job of casting some doubt around his character. In a town where it's common for locals to target American visitors and lure them into green-card marriage arrangements, what are Alyosha's true intentions with getting involved with Laura? Does he honestly deeply care for her, or does he have ulterior motives like everyone else? Even by the very last page, I still had a doubt in my mind about him. I will say the story he shares of the rift that develops in his family after he becomes "dissident" (by the standards of those around him) was saddening and currently relatable on a personal level for me. THAT SAID, I didn't love Alyosha calling Laura a b*tch during an English lesson. Though he says it laughingly and Laura laughs with him, I just feel there's never call for that. But it seems to be a trend in the area, since even Laura's friend Dan (also an exchange student) refers to his Russian girlfriend as "a b*tch, but pretty". Why are all these guys so comfortable hurling this term around? And then we see, just a few months later, Alyosha all up in the "I love yous". Man, everyone involved just needs to walk away and go grow up a little bit before they tackle anything long term.
Even if I found the main couple problematic, I did kinda enjoy their journey here, maybe because 90 Day Fiance is my guilty pleasure tv viewing. 😄 Yeah, if you're a fellow fan of that series and need a fix between episodes, this'll do the trick keeping you occupied for a day or two! I'm also grateful it served as a reminder for me to revisit the works of Gogol.
Note to readers: This novel contains spoilers for the novels Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
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