The Last Grand Duchess: A Novel of Olga Romanov, Imperial Russia, and Revolution

This second historical novel by Turnbull (who earned plaudits and delight with The Woman Before Wallis, about the woman loved by Edward VIII before Mrs. Simpson) traces the final decade in the life of Grand Duchess Olga, the oldest of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra’s five children. Turnbull uses primary sources from the Romanov historical record (including Olga’s diaries, first published in English in 2013) to portray Olga as the girl next door. Modest, smart, and compassionate, she is the role model for her three sisters and a protector of her afflicted brother, the heir. Yet there is a raging romantic streak in Olga’s soul that her stern, imperial mother cannot quench. Turnbull pries off the veneer that masked Olga as a blue-blooded victim of the Bolshevik Revolution; instead she gives Olga a three-dimensional personhood with a verve that evokes Scarlett O’Hara. Judiciously, Turnbull also tracks profound fault lines in the Romanov ruling couple and in Russian culture that led to the assassination of all seven Romanovs in 1918.