When revolutionaries strike, killing Tsar Alexander II, and Sasha is crowned Tsar Alexander III, Minnie takes on her duties as Tsarina Maria Feodorovna. Sasha, a member of the Imperial Guard, is gruff and initially unappealing to Minnie, but she agrees to marry him. Their joyous engagement is thwarted when Nixa contracts meningitis and dies on his deathbed, he asks his brother Sasha to marry Minnie.
In the 1860s, Princess Dagmar of Denmark (aka Minnie) succumbs to the charms of Tsarevich Nixa, son of Tsar Alexander II, and heir to the Russian throne. "The Romanov Empress" is blessed with a memorable cast, especially its leading lady.Gortner’s mesmerizing historical novel (following The Vatican Princess) depicts the remarkable life of the mother of the last Russian tsar. Maria’s life as a royal reads like a historical soap opera. It is Empress Alexandra, as she becomes, along with her mystic Rasputin, who is cast as both Maria’s and Russia’s true enemy. Her sister-in-law and frenemy in court, Grand Duchess Pavlovna, aka Miechen, epitomizes the aristocracy and provides the perfect foil for Maria – until her son Nicholas, a weak and eventually ineffective tsar, weds the German princess Alix of Hesse. The characters appear to be right out of central casting. Maria herself would rise to become one of the most powerful empresses in the world through the diligent direction of her domineering mother. Thankfully for the reader, the era was rich in personality. With historical fiction, particularly an era so flush with royals and revolutionaries, there is a danger in getting lost in details and shortchanging character development. His ability to weave what reads as a simple tale from such complex historical and familial storylines is impressive. Gortner ("Mademoiselle Chanel," "The Vatican Princess") even handles the Russian and royal penchant for myriad nicknames easily, so the reader is not continually guessing who is who. (As an example, aside from Dagmar, Maria was also known as Minnie and Manja, depending who was addressing her.)
Along the way, the reader gets a lesson in the intricate and incestuous marriages of not just the Russian royal family but all the houses of Europe. The reader travels with Maria on her tumultuous journey from lesser royal in Denmark to just before her eventual exile in Europe after the Russian Revolution. The novel begins just before Maria’s first royal engagement: to Alexander III’s brother Nicholas, who died from meningitis and whose last wish was for his fiancee to wed his younger brother.
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