Romanov by Nadine Brandes

Series: N/A
# of Pages: 337
Publication: May 7th, 2019
Source: Library Audiobook
Genre: Historical Fiction/Fantasy
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The history books say I died. They don’t know the half of it. Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them, and he’s hunted Romanov before. Nastya’s only chances of saving herself and her family are to either release the spell and deal with the consequences, or enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya has only dabbled in magic, but it doesn’t frighten her half as much as her growing attraction to Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her. That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad . . . and he’s on the other.

This book was a heck of a ride and extremely interesting. I will start by saying that most of the book is slow and I mean extremely slow. The reader spends a great portion of the book learning about the Romanov family and their history as well as watching them attempt to become acclimated to their new lodgings as captives of the Bolsheviks. There is also a great portion of the text that is spent on character development. Nastya describes not only herself, but also characteristics of her family and the guards that watch the family. Here’s where it gets weird: there is magic included in the story. So this book ultimately goes from being a book revolving around historical fiction associated with the Romanov family to one that centers on magic. The magic is contained within a single doll and in my opinion proves to be quite complex. It took me listening to a few passages quite a few times in order to fully understand every aspect of the magic system. However, even with the magical element the book moved quite slow. It was only after an extremely tragic event that the book really become fast-paced and fully engaging. What was most disappointing element of this book for me was definitely the fact that I didn’t have an attachments to any of the characters. I was empathetic towards her brother and family, but I didn’t really feel super connected to anyone which made the story less thrilling. I felt the need and the urgency of Nastya to save her family, but it was still hard for me to care. 

As with a lot of YA novels, I truly feel as though there was no need to include a romantic relationship. Her relationship with Zash was unwarranted and not exactly relevant to the story meaning that the book could have been written without him. However, the development of the plot towards the end of the book overshadowed and definitely made up for the inconsistency of the relationship between Nastya and Zash. One thing that I would caution any reader before delving into this book is that the magic is not simple and sometimes it’s hard to recognize its importance in context of the historical story. I enjoyed it, but it did take the analysis of passages to really grasp what the author intended. Slow, but intense I think that this is a book that I would recommend for individuals that enjoy historical fiction.