The Last Romanov

The Last Romanov by Dora Levy Mossanen
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I only got into this book about 150 pages before I quit. I normally enjoy historical fiction and don't mind the idea of magic thrown in, as long as it's believable. This wasn't. For one thing, aurochs play an important part in the story. Only problem is, the last known auroch died in 1627, almost 300 years before this story takes place! And there were lots of little details like that in the book that drove me crazy. You can write stories integrating known facts and bringing in a bit of believable magic - but this writer didn't do that. It's like she didn't bother to actually research the history of the Romanov's and Russia. Instead, she just took all the stories she'd ever heard and threw it into a novel. Never mind the fact that Alexei Nikolaevich's remains were positively identified in April 2008 (four years before this book hit the shelves). I might have been able to push through and finish the book if it wasn't for the lackluster writing. Instead of making me feel Sabrina's love for Boris, the author relies on cheap sex scenes. Instead of making me feel Darya's love for Avram, she slips back into cheap sex scenes. Instead of making me feel the passion of anger in a character, she resorts to profanity and infantile insults. Oh, the whole thing just rubbed me the wrong way, so I gave up on it. Which is sad, because the idea of the story could have been so wonderful. Instead, the author chose the easy way and made something that had the potential for beauty into a cheap piece of junk.

Kindle Edition: Last Romanov