For readers of Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir comes an "impressive" novel that "reads like a historical soap opera" (USA Today) of the beloved Empress Maria, the Danish girl who became the mother of the last Russian tsar. Narrated by the mother of Russia's last tsar, this vivid, historically authentic novel brings to life the courageous story of Maria Feodorovna, one of Imperial Russia's most compelling women, who witnessed the splendor and tragic downfall of the Romanovs as she fought to save her dynasty in the final years of its reign. Barely nineteen, Minnie knows that her role as a Danish princess is to leave her family and enter into a royal marriage. Fortune brings Minnie to Russia, where she marries the Romanov heir and becomes empress. When resistance to his reign strikes her family and the tsar sets out to crush all who oppose him, Minnie-now called Maria-must tread a perilous path of compromise in a country she has come to love. Her husband's death leaves their son Nicholas as the inexperienced ruler of a deeply divided empire, together with his headstrong wife, Alexandra, whose fervor has led her to a disturbing relationship with a mystic named Rasputin. As the wave of revolution rises anew to engulf Russia, Maria will face her most dangerous challenge and her greatest heartache. From the opulent palaces of St. Petersburg and the intrigue-laced salons of the aristocracy to World War I battlefields and the bloodied countryside occupied by the Bolsheviks, C. W. Gortner sweeps us into the anarchic fall of an empire and the bold heart of the woman who tried to save it. Story Locale- Late-19th and early-20th-century Russia, Denmark, and England