When I was younger, I was fascinated by the movie Anastasia. But that’s pretty much where my fascination started and ended – I’ve read one or two books about the last Romanovs, and I’ve read about Catherine the Great, but in general, I’m not familiar with Russian royalty, which is how I completely missed out on the story of Tsarina Maria Feodorona, the grandmother of Anastasia. 

The Romanov Empress is a fictional account of Tsarina Maria Feodorona (or Minnie, as everyone calls her), from her tragic first engagement to Nixa, the heir to the Russian throne who dies, to her marriage to Nixa’s brother, Sasha and her triumph as tsarina, to the last days of the Romanov dynasty. It’s a fascinating and moving portrait and it humanises her in a way that biographies, with its reliance on facts, tend not to do. I mean, I cried when Sasha passed away because Minnie’s grief in the book was just so raw! 

As the book centres around Minnie, she’s the most fully fleshed out and sympathetic character. I really admired how she grew into her role as tsarina and how she slowly fell in love with her husband. On the other hand, I had a very strong antipathy towards Tsarina Alexandra, the wife of Tsar Nicholas II. From what I’ve read previously, Tsarina Alexandra (Alicky, as she was known to her family) was a very shy and introverted woman who didn’t take to social engagements. In the book, her shyness comes across as pride as she demands respect but does nothing to cultivate it, and she even eavesdrops on the conversations that Nicholas has with others. It’s a very unsympathetic portrayal of her, but it does come across as a plausible one since the entire book is from Minnie’s point of view.

By the way, the author’s note doesn’t tell us where artistic license was taken (or if it was taken). The author’s note is spent telling us about what happens after the book ends and there is a bibliography. If you want to know about how realistic this story was, you’ll have to flip to the acknowledgements sections, where she talks about how much accuracy she strove to include.

Overall, this was an immersive and entertaining book about a royal that I’ve not really read about before. I very much enjoyed the way these historical figures have been brought to life and it has made me curious about the Romanovs as a family!