The Diamond Eye is an excellent fictionalized retelling of the life of the legendary Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko (called Mila in the book). Lyundmila was an infamously deadly Soviet sniper (incidentally, born in Kiyv) who is credited with killing over 300 Nazis during World War II. She was so good at her job, she earned the…
Ellen Alpsten’s Tsarina took a look at the life of Catherine I, and The Tsarina’s Daughter gives us a peek behind the curtain at the life of Catherine and Peter the Great’s daughter, Elizabeth. The novel is overlong and overly florid, with soapy plot twists abounding, just like the previous book in the series, and…
Aster Glenn Gray’s Honeytrap is a compelling and unique story that charts the development of the unlikely relationship between an American FBI agent and a lieutenant in the Red Army (and possible KGB agent) over a period of around thirty-five years. It’s extremely well-written, and the author does an amazing job of exploring the cultural…
I can’t recall the last time I read a book so intriguing as Ellen Alpsten’s gripping (although at points a touch unbelievable) Tsarina, the story of Peter the Great of Russia’s second, last, and longest-lasting wife. Marta is born onto an estate of serfs in the Baltics in the late 1600s. Raised by a resentful…
I knew going in that Romanov would be an emotional read. A fantasy novel about the Russian royal family’s incarceration told from the view point of Grand Duchess Anastasia, it could hardly be a cheery book; after all, the horrifying historical ending to that imprisonment is common knowledge. However, in the first half of this…
I haven’t found much in the way of historical fiction set in Russia that doesn’t deal with the Russian Revolution, and while that time period does interest me a great deal, I do like a bit of variety in my reading. So, when I read the blurb for C.W. Gortner’s latest work The Romanov Empress,…
I’ve long been fascinated by the story of Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, and so, when Ariel Lawhorn’s I Was Anastasia came up for review, I was thrilled to get a chance to read it. I had really high hopes for this book, but, because of some quirks in the storytelling, I found myself quite disappointed….
I’ve been looking forward to Marguerite Kaye’s new, four-book Matches Made in Scandal series, as each story is set in a different European city. While I certainly don’t object to historical romances set in the UK, I am always keen to venture elsewhere, and was definitely enticed by the thought of reading romances set in…
Sometimes I do judge a book by its cover. Or at least, I make the decision to read it based on cover art and back blurb. That’s what happened with The Bookworm, a gorgeous cover and intriguing back blurb lured me into picking it for review. Unfortunately, the book’s interior didn’t quite match the promising…
Every time I read a new book by Nalini Singh, I think she’s reached her peak. Few authors who have a backlist as long as hers would get such unequivocal praise from me, but after years of enjoying Ms. Singh’s world building and character building (across two series, no less!) I expect nothing less than…