BOOK REVIEWS
Published by Bloomsbury
The Tsarina’s Daughter (see interview with Ellen Alpsten on page 8) plunged me into eighteenth century Imperialist Russia and it felt a bit deep end because most of my usual landmarks were missing. Having grown up on Jean Plaidy and Anya Seyton – much of the history I know first came to my attention through fiction. But most of it was, and still is, British via Philippa Gregory, CJ Sansom, Hilary Mantel et al.
So I learned an enormous amount – assisted by Google which I kept consulting to check that the historical facts are right. And of course, they are. Elizabeth is the daughter of Peter the Great in a dynasty which has succession by appointment rather than automatic birthright. Her fortunes go up and down after the death of her father and life is hideously dangerous and very violent. Puzzlingly, characters seem to keep changing their personality – friendly one minute and (very) hostile the next but everyone is involved in a power struggle and I suppose the (literal) backstabbing culture really was part of everyday life.
Lizenka, as she is known to her intimates, eventually rises to the top of the pile, against the odds and after a couple of colourfully evoked love affairs, and reigns for twenty years.
It’s a compelling read for another reason too. I will overlook the occasional jarring laziness in the writing (“Russia was caught between a rock and a hard place”) for the general knowledge I picked up. The Russian version of soured cream is known as smetena and the whip used for corporal punishment at court was a knout – what a useful Scrabble word!
This book published this summer is a sequel to Tsarina, although it reads perfectly well as a standalone.
Two further titles are planned.