There's a heavy price to pay for royalty in this compelling--and
true--story of Anastasia Romanov and her fellow grand duchesses of
Russia, from an award-winning novelist.
It's summer in 1914 and the Romanovs are aboard the Standart, the
Russian royal yacht. 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 seems like a
fairy tale existence for the four grand duchesses, dressed in beautiful
clothes, traveling from palace to palace. But it's not.
Life inside the palace is far from a fairy tale. 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. The secrets and strain are hard
on the family, and conditions are equally dire beyond the palace walls.
Peasants suffer under the burden of extreme poverty and Tsar Nicholas's
leadership power weakens. And when the unthinkable happens--Germany
declares war on Russia--nothing in Anastasia's world will ever be the
same.