Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison

I have a number of historical eras that I seem to be drawn to when it comes to books. Among those are books set in the medieval era, World War I and II, and books set in Russia, especially those featuring the Romanov family.

It was therefore no surprise that I was interested in this book when I first heard of it. The main character of this book is Masha Rasputina, daughter of the infamous 'Mad Monk' Grigori Rasputin, which is an interesting choice of narrator that I have only seen used one other time in Robert Alexander's book Rasputin's Daughter.

This book hinges on the premise that Rasputin organised for his daughters, Masha and Varya, to be made wards of the Romanov family after his death. The book opens with the story of his death, although it is revisited several times through the book, and so the two girls are taken to live with the Tsar and Tsarina, their four daughters (collectively known as OTMA - Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia) and their son, Alexei, or Alyosha as he is known. It is a difficult time to be associated with the Romanovs though.  The revolution is underway, and they are in the process of being removed from the throne. Masha and Varya are basically kept prisoner with the family and it is in this restricted environment that a strong relationship develops between Masha and Alyosha, despite the fact that he is 14 years old and she is 18.

The tsarina believes that Masha has some of the same skills of her father in that she will be able to heal the tsarevich who suffers from hemophilia. While Masha feels the pressure that this assumption heaps on her, it is really Alyosha's mental well being that is aided by his relationship with Masha, especially after he has an accident that causes a hemophiliac episode that leaves him bedridden. Spending time without other family members around, Masha is able to share stories with Alyosha both of her own past, especially the story of how her father came to prominence, of Rasputin's death and of the boy's own family. They talk of how difficult the tsarina found the role that she had married into, the relationship with her critical mother in law, and dealing with the cloud of depression that hovered over her. Alyosha also showed a very practical understanding of the current political situation and the mistakes that his father had made in dealing with the revolutionaries, and he was pretty much convinced that they were all going to die, regardless of the way that his other family members refused to accept this as their future.

Some of these stories were lovely. For example, the two created a dazzlingly dream like sequence of the life of his parents after his mother moved to Russia following her marriage. Nicky (the tsar) would wrap up his much loved wife in the middle of the night and take her out in a white sled pulled by white horses, and show her the city of St Petersburg and the country around their home in a way that just wouldn't be allowed during the day.

There are many instances within the book where the language is beautiful, but I think that I missed having a linear storyline. Maybe because the story is so well known, the author felt some freedom to not need to keep to a strong plot. After all, the ending for the Romanovs was never going to be in doubt. The stories that were told moved backwards and forwards through time, including after the family's death, when Masha eventually gets hold of Alyosha's diary and he tells of life for the family in the 'house of special purpose' they were moved to before they were murdered. While a non linear story can work for me as a reader when it is done well, this was one of those occasions where I found it a distraction.

One of the plot points that were there seemed to be a kind of sexual awakening between Masha and Alyosha initially, and then, once Masha had left the family, with a young peasant girl.  I may be sticking my head in the sand a little, but I look at my 14 year old son and think that it would be just completely wrong for the kind of sexual awakening that it is described with an 18 year old girl. I do understand that being in close confines would possible allow this, but to be constantly guarded and still find a way... not sure.

Masha's story continues after she is separated from the Romanovs, when she is unhappily married and finds herself in various European countries with her charlatan of a husband. Eventually she finds work as a trick rider in a circus, and in due course trading on her father's name before her career is ended in a horrific animal attack. My overriding feeling for Masha by the end of the story was one of despair because she never really seemed to have come to a place of peace within herself, haunted in her dreams by the past and the Romanov family.

There were elements of this that had a magical realism kind of feeling. As an example, the tsarina Alexandra is described as having a cloud above her head that would only disappear when she was happy and this was something that others could see. There are also a couple of episodes where Masha looks inside a Faberge egg and sees a representation of the Romanov's favourite home and the people moving within it. Again, nice imagery, but not sure what it added to the story!

As I read through the other reviews on the blog tour, they are predominantly positive with a couple that were kind of mediocre. If you think that this might be a book that interests you then take a look at some of the other reviews by clicking on the tour details below. It wasn't a book that worked for me though.

Rating 2.5/5

Tour Details

Link to Tour Schedule: http://tlcbooktours.com/2013/01/kathryn-harrison-author-of-enchantments-on-tour-februarymarch-2013/
Kathryn Harrison's website

Synopsis

St. Petersburg, 1917. After Rasputin’s body is pulled from the icy waters of the Neva River, his eighteen-year-old daughter, Masha, is sent to live at the imperial palace with Tsar Nikolay and his family. Desperately hoping that Masha has inherited Rasputin’s healing powers, Tsarina Alexandra asks her to tend to her son, the headstrong prince Alyosha, who suffers from hemophilia. Soon after Masha arrives at the palace, the tsar is forced to abdicate, and the Bolsheviks place the royal family under house arrest. As Russia descends into civil war, Masha and Alyosha find solace in each other’s company. To escape the confinement of the palace, and to distract the prince from the pain she cannot heal, Masha tells him stories—some embellished and others entirely imagined—about Nikolay and Alexandra’s courtship, Rasputin’s exploits, and their wild and wonderful country, now on the brink of an irrevocable transformation. In the worlds of their imagination, the weak become strong, legend becomes fact, and a future that will never come to pass feels close at hand.

Imperial Highness by Evelyn Anthony

Imperial Highness is set in eighteenth-century imperial Russia and centres around the life of Catherine the Great and her Romanov descendants. Against this Czarist background, Evelyn Anthony vividly recreates the deformed and immature figure of Grand Duke Peter, to whom Catherine was first betrothed as a young German princess. And to whom she became a wife in name only. Alongside him, the dazzling person of Catherine herself is made  to live again: a woman who dreamed of leaving her name in the annals of world history even as a child.Whether as wife, mother, lover or future Empress of Russia, the role of Catherine Alexeievna is never without colour. And in Imperial Highness, Evelyn Anthony captures the personal fascination of her subject while also telling the story of Catherine's adulterous love affairs, and the struggle for the imperial throne.

Some times when I look at the recent and upcoming historical fiction releases I scan through looking for something other than yet another Tudor book, or this year in particular another book about Eleanor of Aquitaine and I wonder why there aren't books about some of the other fascinating characters in history. For example, I cannot for the life of me figure out why there are so few books around about the life of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia.

Here we have a strong, beautiful, charming and beautiful ruler clad in fabulous clothes and jewellery who ruled her land for many years- everything that a queen is supposed to be really. She lived a very dramatic life filled with tension, conflict, lovers and scandal, led her country into a period of learning and culture and so much more.

I was glad to see that next year there is going to be a new book on Catherine, but in the mean time I was even happier to see someone reference this book on Goodreads. My own library doesn't have this book but fortunately I was able to borrow it through inter library loan. If you don't read any further in this review, the fact that I have already requested the next book in the trilogy, also through ILL, should tell you that I enjoyed this first book very much.

Young Princess Augusta Frederica was from a very noble, but very poor family in what is now modern day Poland. When she is summoned by the Empress Elizabeth of Russia everyone knows that it will likely lead to marriage, but for the young princess it is also a potential way out from underneath the harsh control of her mother and her very pious father.

Upon arrival in Russia, the young princess takes the court by storm, with one exception. Her future husband Peter, nephew and heir of the Empress Elizabeth, takes an instant dislike to the newcomer, and so a relationship that will be the source of much scandal over the years to come is formed. The Peter portrayed in the book is maniacal, immature, ill-formed and basically unsuitable for his future role as Emperor of Russia, particularly because of his very Prussian views and loyalties. For Elizabeth though, she sees no choice but to keep him as her heir, and initially she see the young princess that she has named Catherine as a possible positive influence on Peter. She could hardly have been more wrong.

However the Empress also had a somewhat changeable nature and it doesn't take much to upset her, so Catherine goes from being in favour to very much out of favour, especially given that the marriage between Catherine and Peter does not and can not provide the one thing that Elizabeth desperately needs from them - a legitimate heir.

One of the questions that I have thought about off and on over the years is one related to time travel - Where and when would you like to travel to if you could? While I always struggle to the where, I always know what I wouldn't want to be - a noble. Being highly born seems to have been quite treacherous in many countries and the imperial court of Russia was no exception. When there was no baby forthcoming, the Empress Elizabeth had the couple basically locked up together for years in the misguided hope that there may at last be a child. Time and again Catherine was bought before the aging Empress and feared for her life having offended the ruler in some way or another. Then again, I wouldn't really have wanted to end up as a serf either, so maybe I will just stay in the comfortable surroundings of here and now.

Years later, when finally freed from captivity, we see a much harder, much wiser Catherine, but also a woman who knows what she wants, and this includes various lovers! Catherine had used her time in captivity to educate herself and emerged having studied many of the great minds of the age. She was still young, still beautiful, intelligent and above all ambitious! And with her husband seemingly barely capable of controlling himself let alone an entire empire, the Catherine that we know from history emerges to take control. The book closes with Catherine coming to the throne, ably assisted by those loyal to her including her powerful lover who orchestrates the bloodless coup.

I wouldn't say that I am particularly knowledgeable about the life and times of Catherine the Great. Even just a quick look at a few websites after finishing the book seems to indicate that there are some discrepancies between the history portrayed in this book and what actually happened, but when all is said and done, this was a really entertaining read full of dramatic moments, court intrigue, passion and ambition, and this reader was left wanting more!

Please note that this book was also published under the title Rebel Princess, and is the first book in the Romanov trilogy.

Rating 4.5/5

Cross posted at Historical Tapestry

Rasputin's Daughter by Robert Alexander

With the same riveting historical narrative that made The Kitchen Boy a national bestseller, Robert Alexander returns to Russia for the harrowing tale of Rasputin's final days as told by his young and spirited daughter, Maria.

After the fury of the Russian Revolution has swept Nicholas and Alexandra from the throne of Imperial Russia, a special commission is set up to investigate the "dark forces" that caused the downfall of the House of Romanov. The focus, of course, turns to Grigori Rasputin, the notorious holy man and healer who was never far from the throne.

To discover the truth, the commission interrogates Maria Rasputin, the oldest of the Rasputin children, in the ransacked Winter Palace. There, she vividly recounts a politically tumultuous Russia where Rasputin's powerful influences over the Romanovs is unsettling to all levels of society, and the threats to his life are no secret. While vast conspiracies mount against her father, Maria must struggle with the discovery of her father's true nature - his unbridled carnal appetites, mysterious relationship with the Empress, rumours of involvement in secret religious cults - to save her father from his murderers. With clarity and courage, Maria shatters the myths of Rasputin's murder, revealing how she tried to save her father, who nearly killed Rasputin and, most importantly, the devious secrets his murderers still guard.

Using long lost files, Robert Alexander once again delivers an imaginative and compelling story: Rasputin's Daughter vividly brings to life one of history's most fascinating and legendary periods.

I've been sitting here for ages trying to think what to say about this book, which really surprises me for two reasons. Firstly, I don't normally have that trouble, and secondly, I really enjoyed this book so it shouldn't be so hard.

The story starts with Maria Rasputin being picked up and taken to face the commission that has been set up to investigate what caused the fall of the House of Romanov. The irony of the fact that one of her father's favourite authors is the man charged with recording the evidence of what happened to Rasputin is not lost on Maria, but once she has agreed to cooperate she starts her story a week before his death.

For Maria, the events of the last week before her father's death were very revealing. She began to understand his true nature - including the nature of his relationship with the royal family, some of the people that he associated with, and many of his own personal demons. In many ways, however, this book was more about Maria coming to see her family through adult eyes - understanding that her father was not perfect in many ways, and also understanding that the events that were taking place around her were out of her control. It was also about her coming to know herself and facing the consequences of her own decisions as she finds herself falling for the mysterious young man who has appeared and then disappeared from her life a couple of times.

As with The Kitchen Boy, Robert Alexander manages to effectively convey the confusion and fears of characters living in a turbulent time in Russian history. In some ways, this book felt a little more cohesive than The Kitchen Boy, maybe because it was at it's very core a simpler story. I certainly felt as though I was going on the roller coaster ride of emotions as faced by Maria - from the fear for her father's life, to the excitement of falling in live, to the confusion as she comes to realise some of the facts about her father, to her courage as she faced the reality of what had happened to her father, and to her, and a very uncertain future.

A very entertaining read about a very interesting period in time!

Rating:4.5/5

The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander

This was the book of the month for September over at Historical Fiction Forum - a welcome change from the usual selections which tend to always feature English royalty. As much as I love reading about those, it is nice to expand the horizons a little bit!

Though the events are almost a century old, the imprisonment and execution of Tsar Nicholas and his family still hold an aura of mystery that fascinates. In haunting prose, Robert Alexander retells the story through the eyes of Leonka, on the kitchen boy to the Romanovs, who claims to be the last living witness to the family's brutal execution. Mysteriously spared by the Bolsheviks, the boy vanished into the bloody tides of the Russian Revolution. Now, through Alexander's conjuring, he reemerges to tell his story. What did the young boy see in those last days of the Imperial Family? Does he have answers to long-standing questions about secret letters smuggled to the Tsar, thirty-eight pounds of missing tsarist jewels, and why the bodies of two Romanov children are missing from the secret grave discovered in 1991?

This book is only about 200 pages long but for it's diminutive size it certainly was a captivating read.

It is told from the perspective of an old man telling his grand daughter the story of his life. The story he weaves in an extraordinary one. As a young boy, he was the kitchen boy assigned to the Romanov family. When the Romanovs were imprisoned at the Ipatiev house in Siberia, the kitchen boy Leonka was one of the few personal servants who were allowed to continue to serve the Tsar and his family.

Through the eyes of Leonka, we witness the last few days of the Royal family through several incidents, most notably when it seems as though they might be rescued as indicated in secret notes smuggled in to them. As the Tsarina and her daughters frantically try to hide the family jewels in case they are able to escape.

Incredibly, on the day that the Tsar, his family and his personal attendants are all killed, Leonka has been set free, thus saving his life. But for Leonka this has not necessarily been a blessing, for having snuck back to the house and been witness to the infamous events that followed, he is the last living witness, even able to give some clue as to what happened to the bodies of two of the Romanov children that were missing when the family's grave was finally discovered in 1991.

I really enjoyed the insight into the final days of the Tsar and his family...certainly a terrible incident in the long and turbulent history of Russia. There was a really interesting twist at the end of the book which I liked, although the author may have taken it just a fraction too far!

There is a really good website for this book as well, that can be found here.

Overall, an entertaining read!

Rating 4/5