Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Romanov by Nadine Brandes

Romanov
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 survival are to either release the spell, and deal with the consequences, or enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn't act like the average Boleshevik. Nastya's never dabbled in magic before, but it doesn't frighten her as much as her growing attraction for Zash. She likes him. She things he might even like her...
That is, until she's on one side of a firing squad... and he's on the other.

Review

I loved all the different books that have come out lately that are based on Russain folktales! This one is a "magical retelling" of Anastasia Romanov's story.

Also, this book is by the same author that wrote Fawkes, and I've been wanting to read that for a while now!

This book starts after Anastasia's father abdicated his throne and his family was exiled.

I had a really strong feeling of deja vu while reading this book, and I still have not been able to figure out why. I only had a little knowledge of Anastasia's story (much of which I learned from the Disney movie ðŸ˜€).

I liked this book, but I felt it could have been done better. Some of the reviews on GoodReads point to inaccuracies in some of the historical aspects, which did not bother me while reading the book because I did not know about most of them. However, if I had known more about the real history of the Romanov family, some of this probably would have irked me.

Since I didn't know much about the history of the Romanov family, I wish that a little more of the history had been included. At the beginning of the book, the family is already in exile. It doesn't explain why Anastasia's father abdicated his throne or why they were exiled.

The first half of the book is all about the family's experience in exile, how they were treated, and how they lived during that time, with little bits of fantasy and magic, and of course, fictitious romantic relationships. The second half could almost be a separate book with how different it is. It is full of fantasy and magic.

I love the morals and the lessons behind the story, and of course, I loved the magic!

If you are looking for a quick, fun read, I recommend this book. If you do not know anything at all about the Romanov family, you might want to do a quick Google search or read the Wikipedia article before reading this book.

I received a copy of this book from the publishers, via Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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