I received this ARC via NetGally in exchange for an honest review.

i know nothing about the romanovs nor anything about russia. so this book was almost like a history lesson than anything. however, because of this book, i did some of my own research and i felt like the book should've been in two books instead of one.

one of the reasons why is because i wanted more information on maria and what she had to go through. some of the things in the books were sort of fleeting and forgettable. some other things were well in depth and something that i liked. one of the things that was missing was the coup d'etat with the entire romanov family and nicholas.

another thing that i thought was weird was how they villainized alexandra to the point where i didn't like her. i'm sure that if someone didn't do their own research on the romanov family and read this book, they would automatically despise alexandra and think of her as a snake or something. it felt weird because i understand why she did what she did, but i felt like he should've make her more sympathetic than making her into this evil villain of the story. i guess even biographical stories needs their own villain.

otherwise, i liked the story and i liked the way he wrote this book. some editing is needed and maybe more in-depth analysis would be better for the story.