A book is born
My new novel, THE ROMANOV BRIDES, is taking its first steps out into the world, and that's so very exciting. The pub date is March 12, but the book is now available via NetGalley, and as a Goodreads giveaway.
Here's what I can tell you about my new "baby": It resembles my first, but has a rather different nature.
I knew I wanted to return to the late Victorian world, where A MOST ENGLISH PRINCESS is set, and revisit the family of the great Queen. Like all families, this clan had its shining stars and its black sheep, its rivalries and its alliances, its triumphs and its tragedies. And because the children of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert married into the other royal families of Europe, they created a web of relations that had an outsized impact on history. I knew there was much more here to explore.
I became curious about the four beautiful princesses of Hesse, said to be Queen Victoria's favorite granddaughters. The Queen paid them special attention after they lost their mother, Princess Alice, to diphtheria. No young women in the extended royal family were more sought after as brides than the Hesse princesses, and the Queen hoped to guide them into matches of her choosing. In the end, each sister defied her.
The Queen, distrustful of all Russians, found it particularly hard to accept when her pet, Princess Ella, married a Romanov Grand Duke, Serge. And at Ella's wedding the youngest Hesse princess, Alix, met the 16-year-old tsarevich, Nicky. One of the most famous—and most tragic—love stories in modern history was set into motion.
My novel is a kind of prequel. Like all couples Nicholas and Alexandra, the last tsar and tsarina, had a back story—and this is theirs. I was struck as I researched and wrote about their courtship how they were flawed, as all people are, but essentially well-intentioned. Their world was a narrow one for all it's sophistication, and they didn't anticipate the historical forces mustering against them. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say they failed to envision how different the future would be from the past. And, most poignantly, they hadn't understood the risk of hemophilia that Alix carried.
Their love blossomed in ignorance of much, but within the intimate realm of a glamorous royal circle, in a grand, imperial Europe that was about to disappear forever.
I hope you will read and enjoy THE ROMANOV BRIDES. I welcome comments and feedback, good and bad. And I trust you will be surprised by some of what you learn about Alix and her sisters.
Here's what I can tell you about my new "baby": It resembles my first, but has a rather different nature.
I knew I wanted to return to the late Victorian world, where A MOST ENGLISH PRINCESS is set, and revisit the family of the great Queen. Like all families, this clan had its shining stars and its black sheep, its rivalries and its alliances, its triumphs and its tragedies. And because the children of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert married into the other royal families of Europe, they created a web of relations that had an outsized impact on history. I knew there was much more here to explore.
I became curious about the four beautiful princesses of Hesse, said to be Queen Victoria's favorite granddaughters. The Queen paid them special attention after they lost their mother, Princess Alice, to diphtheria. No young women in the extended royal family were more sought after as brides than the Hesse princesses, and the Queen hoped to guide them into matches of her choosing. In the end, each sister defied her.
The Queen, distrustful of all Russians, found it particularly hard to accept when her pet, Princess Ella, married a Romanov Grand Duke, Serge. And at Ella's wedding the youngest Hesse princess, Alix, met the 16-year-old tsarevich, Nicky. One of the most famous—and most tragic—love stories in modern history was set into motion.
My novel is a kind of prequel. Like all couples Nicholas and Alexandra, the last tsar and tsarina, had a back story—and this is theirs. I was struck as I researched and wrote about their courtship how they were flawed, as all people are, but essentially well-intentioned. Their world was a narrow one for all it's sophistication, and they didn't anticipate the historical forces mustering against them. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say they failed to envision how different the future would be from the past. And, most poignantly, they hadn't understood the risk of hemophilia that Alix carried.
Their love blossomed in ignorance of much, but within the intimate realm of a glamorous royal circle, in a grand, imperial Europe that was about to disappear forever.
I hope you will read and enjoy THE ROMANOV BRIDES. I welcome comments and feedback, good and bad. And I trust you will be surprised by some of what you learn about Alix and her sisters.
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