Review by Booklist Review
Set in Russia just after Napolean's army had fled, Captain Alexander "Sasha" Nikolaevich Dorokhin is walking back from the front to Catherine Palace hoping to go back to his life with Grand Duke Felix, younger son of a tsar who is banished from court. Sasha finds a nearly dead woman in the snow and brings her back into the palace, despite his misgivings about her otherworldly eyes. When she recovers, she slowly convinces Felix that he must fight for the people of Russia against his father. Sasha sees this as treason and tries to reason with Felix, but to no avail. At the same time the Koalitsiya, a group of rebels fed up with the terrible conditions most people live in and the deliberate ignorance of the tsar to make any improvements, is laying the groundwork for an uprising. At the center of this group are Isaak Tversky and Marya Rybakova. When Isaak dies, the Koalitsiya, with Felix's assistance, becomes focused on retribution rather than rebellion. The characters are fleshed out and the world is depicted in colorful brushstrokes. Epstein's latest (after A Tip for the Hangman, 2021) will be a pleasure for readers who enjoy fiction set in tsarist Russia.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Epstein (A Tip for the Hangman) imagines an alternate history of Russia in the aftermath of the War of 1812 in this solid exploration of family loyalty and political revolution. After the war, Capt. Sasha Dorokhin of Russia's Imperial Army returns to Catherine Palace in Tsarkskoe Selo, where his lover, Grand Duke Felix--the younger son of Tsar Sergei--has been banished from Saint Petersburg for questioning his father's politics and harassing the palace maids. When Sasha discovers an unconscious woman, Sofia Azarova, outside the palace and carries her inside to safety, her seemingly otherworldly control over natural event prompts him to request her removal--but Felix allows her to stay. Sofia's influence at court grows, but when she convinces Felix that a series of riots demanding land and money for the people have merit, the tsar becomes enraged, forcing Felix to flee with her--and driving a wedge between Felix and Sasha, who chooses duty over love when Felix joins the fictional Koalitsiya rebellion. Sofia, meanwhile, ignites a showdown between the palace and the people that has devastating consequences. Epstein's unique retelling is richly enhanced by Slavic folklore, and the confusion between duty to family or country is expertly portrayed. Historical fiction fans will be spellbound. Agent: Bridget Smith, JABberwocky Literary. (Oct.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Upheaval in Tsarist Russia. After Napoleon's army retreated from Russia in 1812, years of brutal war left the populace impoverished, roiling with political unrest, and seething with rebellion. Epstein captures the tensions and contradictions of the time in a dramatic page-turner involving the tsar's wayward younger son, Grand Duke Felix; Felix's lover, Sasha, a soldier just returned from the war; and Sofia Azarova, a mesmerizing woman whom Sasha rescues when he finds her prostrate in the snow. Felix is an aristocrat out of central casting: "Tall, strong shouldered, and slim-waisted," Sasha observes; at 28, "he still looked like a storybook prince." His imperious father has exiled him to the sumptuous but far-off Catherine Palace, where he can draw on an ample allowance to indulge his "zest for grandeur." But Felix's life changes irrevocably when Sasha walks in carrying Sofia in his arms. Beautiful, fascinating, and undeniably charismatic, Sofia entices Felix, as if in a spell. Sasha warns him: There is something uncanny about her. She could be a witch, a vila, an evil spirit. But with Sofia's arrival, Sasha realizes, "the trust between them had become fragile," and Felix cannot heed his warning. Nor can Marya resist Sofia's power. Marya is a member of the rebellious popular movement Koalitsiya, which agitates for "legal protections for workers and peasants, a reformed imperial council, religious freedom, [and] a clear path to emancipation for the country's twenty million serfs." Sofia infiltrates the movement, seductively manipulating Marya, at the same time as she insinuates herself into the palace. Violence, betrayal, murder, assassination: Sofia incites mayhem. "This was a woman who could change the shape of the world with a thought," Marya comes to believe. Epstein interweaves a brisk plot with Eastern European folktales that reveal a vila's insidious power. Sofia, hardly human, was "like a creature from legend, an ancient spirit hungry to watch something beautiful burn." A vividly imagined tapestry of turbulent times. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
