As they nurse wounded soldiers, care for their fretful mother, amuse their ailing brother and suffer humiliation and deprivation, the four sisters symbolize family devotion and enduring hope in the face of bitter fate.Ī fascinating, moving exploration of the endlessly fascinating Romanovs, buttressed by extensive and fascinating backmatter.

Removed from the political drama exploding outside their doors, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia emerge as isolated, unique young women with their own dreams and fears. The human side of their story is related chronologically through the alternating first-person voices of insightful Olga, organized Tatiana, kind-hearted Maria and impish Anastasia.

Relying on letters, diaries and photographs of the imperial family as well as memoirs of people who shared their last years, Miller imagines how war and revolution irrevocably transported the Romanovs from their palace to house arrest in rural Tobolsk and final captivity in Ekaterinburg. Tsar Nicholas II’s four ill-fated daughters provide a fictional, inside look at Imperial Russia’s dying days in this thoroughly researched, poignant and compelling account of how the deposed Romanovs coped with abdication and arrest from 1914 to 1918.Īt the beginning of World War I, Russia’s grand duchesses, Olga (19), Tatiana (17), Maria (15) and Anastasia (13) lived privileged, protected lives with their mild-mannered father, Nicholas, their anxious mother, Alexandra and their hemophiliac younger brother, Aleksei. Impeccably researched and utterly fascinating, this novel by acclaimed author Sarah Miller recounts the final days of Imperial Russia with lyricism, criticism and true compassion. For Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, the end of their girlhood together is colliding with the end of more than they ever imagined.Īt the same time hopeful and hopeless, naïve and wise, the voices of these sisters become a chorus singing the final song of Imperial Russia. First dissent, then disorder, mutiny - and revolution. The summer of 1914 is that precious last wink of time when they can still be sisters together-sisters that link arms and laugh, sisters that share their dreams and worries, and flirt with the officers of their imperial yacht.īut in a gunshot the future changes - for these sisters and for Russia.Īs World War I ignites across Europe, political unrest sweeps Russia. They are each on the brink of starting their own lives, at the mercy of royal matchmakers. These are the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, grand duchesses living a life steeped in tradition abd priviledge. Like the fingers on a hand-first headstrong Olga thenTatiana, the tallest Maria the most hopeful for a ring and Anastasia, the smallest.

The lost crown by sarah miller