The tsarina's daughter A novel

Alpsten's follow up to Tsarina (2020) focuses on the life of Elizabeth (Lizenka), daughter of Peter the Great and his second wife, Catherine I, from her royal childhood through a tumultuous adolescence and young adulthood. Lizenka is charming, beautiful, and beloved, inspiring envy and loyalty among her relations and the Russian people. Political intrigue abounds, with friends and family moving through the court and royal residences as power shifts and people fall in and out of favor. Lizenka is originally expected to marry Louis XV of France, but her fortunes fall not long after she encounters the leshy (a forest spirit) on a walk in the woods. The leshy tells Lizenka her future, and Lizenka returns to the leshy's words over the years as each prediction comes true. In addition to foretelling Lizenka's difficulties, the leshy also tells of greatness, which comes to fruition just as the volume ends. Students of Russian history will enjoy the attention to detail, and fans of historical fiction based on real people will devour this rich repast and be left eager for the next book's conclusion of this trilogy about the Romanovs.

Alpsten impresses with the second volume of her trilogy (following Tsarina), focusing on Elizabeth Petrovna Romanova, daughter of Tsar Peter the Great and Catherine I, who ruled Russia from 1741 until her death in 1762. An opening tease signals a grim tale of ruthless determination. In 1741, Elizabeth, 31, the only one of Peter's 15 children still alive, must decide whether to claim the throne. Her quandary: she believes that doing so is her country's only hope of avoiding foreign domination, but it would also displace her one-year-old cousin Ivan. Before she decides, Alpsten traces an arc from Elizabeth's teen years to her assumption of power. That backstory presents the harsh choices her predecessors made; for example, her father personally executed his son Tsarevich Alexey, Elizabeth's half brother, after Alexey became the leader of a movement opposed to the Tsar's reforms aimed at modernizing the country. Elizabeth also experienced the loss of numerous loved ones, including both her parents, and a tumultuous romantic life, given that her preferences for a spouse were secondary to political considerations. While readers will know how the opening drama is resolved, Alpsten's gifts at laying on evocative period detail and engendering empathy for her characters will keep the pages turning. This leaves the series nicely poised for the finale. (Mar.)