The first words to flow from my pen became my final chapter, Olga’s last thoughts before she meets her tragic fate. I knew the final scene of The Last Grand Duchess before I started writing it. At turns glittering and harrowing, The Last Grand Duchess is story about dynasty, duty, and love, but above all, it's the story of a family who would choose devotion to each other over everything - including their lives.It started, as so many books do, at the end. But when tensions run high and supplies run low, the controversy over Rasputin grows into fiery protest, and calls for revolution threaten to end 300 years of Romanov rule.
As troubling rumours about her parents trickle in from the front, Olga dares to hope that a budding romance might survive whatever the future may hold. Olga and her sisters trade their gowns for nursing habits, assisting in surgeries and tending to the wounded bodies and minds of Russia's military officers. But as war approaches, the palaces of Russia are transformed. Olga's only escape from the seclusion of Alexander Palace comes from the grand tea parties her aunt hosts amid the shadow court of Saint Petersburg - a world of opulent ballrooms, scandalous flirtation and whispered conversation. But even as unrest simmers in the capital, Olga is content to live within the confines of the sheltered life her parents have built for her and her three sisters - hiding from the world on account of their mother's ill health, their brother Alexei's secret affliction and rising controversy over Father Grigori Rasputin, the priest on whom the tsarina has come to rely. Grand Duchess Olga Romanov comes of age amid a shifting tide for the great dynasties of Europe.
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