Candace Fleming’s primary focus in this ambitious and compelling work is the story of the Romanov family’s rule of Russia at the start of the twentieth century, including their fall from power and eventual murder. But she provides essential counterpoint and context by weaving in voices of peasants and workers in Russia at the time, stories that describe the widespread poverty, horrifying anti-Semitism, and rising political tensions both within and beyond the vast nation’s borders. The Romanovs were a family of absolute wealth and privilege. Tsar Nicholas was a devoted family man and not without compassion, but it was selective and limited. He was ill-prepared, misguided, and uninformed in his role as Tsar, and didn’t want to know the details of the lives of the country’s citizens. Alexandra, his wife, was intelligent and powerful but also desperate to ease the suffering of her son, Alexei, a hemophiliac. As World War I escalated, Nicholas abdicated almost all responsibility to Alexandra, the Communists seized control, the Bolsheviks took command under Lenin, and the family became prisoners and were eventually executed. Full of intrigue, Fleming’s narrative is also written with intricate and often moving detail. The children of Nicholas and Alexandra — Alexei and his sisters, including Anastasia — become familiar, even if they aren’t always likable. This is part of what makes the book so remarkable: It is full of the complexity of human behavior. Actions may often be easy to label right or wrong, but individuals are contradictory and infuriating and poignant. Sections of black-and-white photographs further illuminate the lives of both rich and poor. (Age 14 and older)

“[A] superb history.... In these thrilling, highly readable pages, we meet Rasputin, the shaggy, lecherous mystic...; we visit the gilded ballrooms of the doomed aristocracy; and we pause in the sickroom of little Alexei, the hemophiliac heir who, with his parents and four sisters, would be murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918.” —The Wall Street Journal
 
Here is the tumultuous, heartrending, true story of the Romanovs—at once an intimate portrait of Russia's last royal family and a gripping account of its undoing. Using captivating photos and compelling first person accounts, award-winning author Candace Fleming (Amelia Lost; The Lincolns) deftly maneuvers between the imperial family’s extravagant lives and the plight of Russia's poor masses, making this an utterly mesmerizing read as well as a perfect resource for meeting Common Core standards.

"An exhilarating narrative history of a doomed and clueless family and empire." —Jim Murphy, author of Newbery Honor Books An American Plague and The Great Fire

"For readers who regard history as dull, Fleming’s extraordinary book is proof positive that, on the contrary, it is endlessly fascinating, absorbing as any novel, and the stuff of an altogether memorable reading experience." —Booklist, Starred

"Marrying the intimate family portrait of Heiligman’s Charles and Emma with the politics and intrigue of Sheinkin’s Bomb, Fleming has outdone herself with this riveting work of narrative nonfiction that appeals to the imagination as much as the intellect." —The Horn Book, Starred

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature
Winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Nonfiction
A Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
A YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award Finalist 
Winner of the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction