There were bridges from one to the next, and the canals were deep, maintained with stone walls that held the Neva River at bay. Look at these quotes and tell me you can't feel the Russian air on your face and the excitement and terror of the revolution: My point? I am rarely so wholly absorbed into another place and time as I was with Tsarina. World-building is nothing without atmosphere. But, whatever, atmosphere is what takes you out of the real world and plants you in another. Maybe there's a bittersweet sadness that makes you feel like you might burst into tears any second - even at the happy parts of the book. Maybe they have an atmosphere of fast-paced, heart-pounding, will-they-live-or-die tension that drags you right into the centre of the story. It's not really something you consider outright when thinking about a book but I honestly believe it can make or break it. I only realised recently just how important atmosphere is to a novel. I couldn't put this wild tale of fact and fiction down. And I like how close to real events she has kept the framework of her story, how she weaves in the Romanov family, Grigori Rasputin and the imperial Faberge eggs (I found this addition quite fascinating). The author says in her note at the end: The Russian Revolution, truth be told, needs little to no fictionalization to be a fascinating time period, full of beauty and horror and wonder. But are we to blame if we simply accept things the way they are without trying to change them? This novel asks that you think about one thing: It is not our fault where and into what circumstances we are born. We see people being dragged from their homes and murdered by the aforementioned angry poor men for crimes they had no say in. We see angry poor men being driven into the ground by the hard labour they perform, while their employers sit in cosy, gold-plated luxury. It expertly blends the historical facts with elements of Russian mythology and sensitively portrays both sides of the revolution by allowing you to come to your own conclusions about which side is to blame - if, in fact, either is. This novel so beautifully captures the cities of St Petersburg and Moscow at the height of the 1917 communist revolution. Saint Petersburg was a city of illusions.
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