Tatiana, Marie, and I rose obediently and started to leave, but Olga didn't move. I loved swirling past the members of the imperial suite, the noble ladies and gentlemen who traveled with us, and seeing how aghast they looked, as though they smelled something slightly off. Only Tatiana held back, sharing her head, until an older man with a grey-streaked beard stepped forward and swept her away, too. It didn't take long for Marie and me to have partners as well, young boys with pink cheeks. I saw Mama frowning and shaking her head and looking to Papa to put a stop to this improper nonsense, but Olga, usually so reserved, was skipping merrily around the dining rooming the arms of a tall, bearded peasant as though she'd been practicing for just this moment. And when the unthinkable happens-Germany declares war on Russia-nothing in Anastasia’s world will ever be the same. Peasants chafe under the burden of extreme poverty and Tsar Nicholas’s leadership power weakens. The secrets and strain are hard on the family, and conditions are equally dire beyond the palace walls. The girls’ younger brother suffers from an excruciatingly painful and deadly blood disease, and their parents have chosen to shield the Russian people from the severity of the future tsar’s condition. Life inside the palace is far from a fairy tale. It seems like a fairy tale existence for the four grand duchesses, dressed in beautiful clothes, traveling from palace to palace.

Tsar Nicholas, Tsaritsa Alexandra, their four daughters, and the youngest child, Tsarevitch Alexei, are sailing to Romania to meet Crown Prince Carol and his parents. It’s summer in 1914 and the Romanovs are aboard the Standart, the Russian royal yacht. There’s a heavy price to pay for royalty in this compelling-and true-story of Anastasia Romanov and fellow grand duchesses of Russia, from an award-winning novelist.

Anastasia by Carolyn Meyer