Title: Romanov
Author: Nadine Brandes
Publication Date: May 7, 2019
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Format: NetGalley eARC
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 survival 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’s never dabbled in magic before, but it doesn’t frighten her as much as her growing attraction for 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.
I’ve been following Nadine Brandes’ newsletters and her Youtube channel for what feels like foreverrrr.
Following, not stalking. There’s a fine line, thank you very much. She’s got such a wonderful personality, though. How can you not follow that?!
Last year, I read Fawkes, which I wasn’t completely enamored with, but it was a fun read, and I really enjoyed the combination of a retelling of history with magic layered on top. I mean, history is okay, but let’s be honest … magic makes everything better.
So when I heard that Brandes’ next book would be:
1. Based on the Romanovs
2. Have Anastasia as a main character
3. Layer magic on top of history
4. Possibly have hate-to-love or ill-fated lovers
… I was all for this and rushed out to read it.
So what was the result? The really rare 2-star rating. I mean, this thing is practically a unicorn for me, because I’m usually really good at picking books that seem like a good fit for me. In this case, I was wrong. I expected something entirely different going into it the book, but had I known it was so heavily focused on the historical fiction aspect, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up, knowing that solid historical fiction isn’t really my thing. It was a case of me just having different expectations of what the book was about.
Romanov is more historical fiction than fantasy, with a heart-warming story of family love, strength during hardship, perseverance, and forgiveness.
Oh, and there’s a dog. And who doesn’t love a good pupper? 10/10 deserves all the treats.
❧ Brandes obviously did her research and really transports the reader to Russia along with the Romanovs.
I confess that I know very little about the Romanovs and Russian culture, particularly during that time, but Brandes had me covered. There was enough information and setting where the book had an authentic Russian feeling (to me, at least, but what do I know? The answer is not much, in this case). The setting is also established well enough, where it’s clearly the Romanovs versus Lenin and the Bolsheviks … and things aren’t exactly going great for the Romanovs. Yeesh.
❧ Nastya is referred to, lovingly, as shvybzik (imp), because of her penchant for pulling pranks, which was really cute.
I mean, I don’t want to spoil any of the pranks, but I thought including them was a nice touch to Nastya’s character. They aren’t anything particularly big or elaborate, but she had little insidious ways of thwarting or subverting the Bolsheviks. And in a situation that she can’t control, where her freedom has essentially been stripped clean away, those little acts of defiance really endeared me to her character all the more.
❧ At its core, Romanov is really about a family that endured countless tragedies, which only served to strengthen their familial bonds. And guys, it was pretty dang sweet.
I mean, if you’re into that thing. *shrug* An unfeeling monster like me obviously wouldn’t be. *cough*
The whole first half of the book focuses around the Romanov family as they deal with exile, as they try to bolster each other and carry on some semblance of normalcy, despite the chaos and despair. There were some really touching scenes.
❧ This book is heavy on the historical fiction and light on the fantasy, which is really what I was here for.
In fact, the whole first half of the book deals with the Romanov exile. As far as I can tell, it seems pretty accurate. Nadine Brandes goes into detail at the end of the book about all the facts in the book and her research, which was pretty interesting. But not why I read the book. I was expecting the magical aspect to play more of a critical role, but really, it was relegated to a deus ex machina, essentially, that had no other purpose besides that.
❧ There’s not a whole lot of action going on for the first half of the book … and then the action in the second half felt so incredibly unbelievable that it broke my suspension of disbelief.
And I say this as someone who’s willing to belief a lot of outrageous things. The first half of the book focuses on the Romanovs in exile. It’s basically quotidian life, which is … taxing.
If you’re looking for some heartwarming, touching family drama, you’ll probably love the first half of this book.
Unfortunately, I was mostly looking for, you know, spells, deceit, lies, magic, and adventure. So that was a bit of a bummer. The second half had all of those things … mostly. Except that the way it was approached, the magic was a deus ex machina; the spells didn’t make any sense to me; the deceit was actually pretty satisfying, not gonna lie; and the adventure was so far-fetched. These characters should’ve been dead ten times over from things they did, yet somehow, they survived without any explanation, defying all reason.
❧ I didn’t feel like I really got to know any of the characters well. And there were a lot of them.
Maybe it was because there were a lot of them that I didn’t really connect with any of them? I don’t know. Well, that’s not true. I loved Alexei. He had so much promise as a character, and I enjoyed his parts, but I felt like I didn’t really get to know him so much as his circumstances. Nikolai seemed like he had promise, too, and I wanted to know more about him, but I never got the chance. The others seemed to just sort of float in the periphery.
There were so many times in the book that a character did something and I just had no idea why. The characters suddenly took giant leaps in perspective for seemingly no reason, which made the character arcs seem a bit choppy to me and hard to follow.
❧ Now, I normally am all for hate-to-love tropes, but this romance was a bit lackluster for me, and I didn’t understand it.
I mean, hate-to-love has to have some sort of catalyst to push it from one to the other in a sensible fashion. Or, preferably, many little micro-catalysts. In Romanov, I just didn’t buy the shift. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and then suddenly, boom, they’re clearly soulmates. And then they aren’t. And then they are. It was a bit all over the place. I felt no chemistry between these characters and no reason for Zash to risk what he does for Nastya.
❧ The magic system was … confusing and a bit too convenient, with no clear background or rules as to how it works.
Soft magic is all well and good, but it should still feel like it fits, and in Romanov, it felt like an afterthought. Magic requires spell ink (which only Spell Masters can make, and the secret is well-guarded) which is put on the skin, a spell word, and a song. Why these three? I have no idea. How are the words chosen? Don’t know that, either. At one point, there’s a Russian word used, but the others aren’t, so I have no idea what the rules are for … well, anything regarding magic. What’s more, it feels so convenient. And when I think I understand the rules, they’re changed and spells are cast/used in a new way that doesn’t seem to quite fit the previous rules.
There also seems to be a bit of history missing to make this new world make sense. Spell Masters are being hunted and slaughtered by the Bolsheviks and spells are illegal, but there’s no explanation as to why. The closest thing given is that Bolsheviks want to gather all the Spell Masters under them so they can control the supply of spells and dole them out to the citizens. Which sort of makes sense, except not when the order is to kill Spell Masters on sight, essentially.
Romanov also suffers from having a magical MacGuffin, which is never really explained, and the plot wouldn’t exist at all without it.
It comes in the form of a Matryoshka doll. The idea seems really neat at first. Nikolai tells Nastya to protect the Matryoshka doll, because it’s the key to saving their family. Okay. Because it was made by the most powerful Spell Master and given to them. Fine. But what exactly does it actually do? Well, it does whatever they need, apparently, when they need it, and they won’t know exactly what it does until they actually need it. And at that point, they’ll be able to use it, but otherwise, it’s just a hunk of wood.
Conveniently, the doll only becomes usable when the plot needs advancing—when there’s a sticky situation and the characters clearly can’t get out of it themselves. Really dampened the stakes for me, because I just kept thinking, well, of course, they’ll just use their magic to get out of it, even if that wasn’t always the case.
❧ The book felt like it was really pushing a particular message (Romanovs = innocent, good; Bolsheviks = guilty, bad), and I couldn’t decide if that was a facet of the point of view character or the author … but it was pretty heavy-handed, either way.
I mean, at one point, Nastya can’t imagine why the Bolsheviks would kill anyone, because that would never happen under her father. And all I can think is … Bloody Sunday, anyone? I don’t know if this was just because Nastya is that ignorant of her father’s reign or wants to give her family the benefit of the doubt or what, but that was one small instance among many, and it really irked me.
In the end, the Romanovs come off looking like a tragic family who were innocent victims of circumstance, ruthlessly slaughtered by the evil Bolsheviks. The good guys were all Romanov supporters, obviously, and in order for any character to suddenly become “good,” then they were no longer Bolsheviks, clearly.
I was so disappointed in this approach, because the Romanov story is, inherently, sympathetic enough without painting them as innocent martyrs. Look, being a king is complicated. I mean, I imagine. If anyone wants to let me test my theory, hey, I’m game.
But let’s be frank … the Romanovs weren’t all cake and ice cream. I wish this book had allowed for more nuances of character. Just because they were flawed, that didn’t mean they deserved to be executed, either. There was a perfectly good angle to be taken with a juxtaposition of their potential ruthlessness when it came to squashing unrest and the gentleness of their family life and interaction. It would’ve certainly produced more well-rounded characters and shown a completely different side of the story. As it was, the characters fell flat to me, because they seemed too good to be true.
Great review! I agree with pretty much all your points. I really like historical fiction, but not when I’m expecting historical fantasy!
The family dynamic was really well done, and I liked Alexei, too, though that kid should have been dead several times over! And you’re right about it seeming to be boiled down to Romanovs Good, Bolshevicks bad, when there really needed to be so much more nuance than that. I kind of wish the story had started a bit earlier and we could have seen more of the start of the revolution and why the Romanovs were taken down.
I really liked the idea of the spell ink but I never really got how it worked.
There was just so much potential for this and it didn’t live up to it!
Thanks! Like 99% of the straight historical fiction I read is World War II. xD Don’t ask me why. Otherwise, I tend to just read non-fiction if I want something historical.
I agree with you on starting earlier. It felt a bit like it’d be an easier start for people who were already familiar with it, I think. But my knowledge is pretty cursory, at best, so it was hard to figure out what was going on, and I ended up just googling it.
I definitely think people who like magical realism and more historical fiction would like this book better. I was just really expecting something different and probably wouldn’t have picked it up if someone had told me the focus was more on the historical fiction aspect.
Fantastic review. As I used to teach this period of Russian History and I may have got rather annoyed if I’d read such a black and white narrative. there are factual reasons to suggest that Anastasia may have been clueless to her nation’s history but not the other characters!!
Thank you! Yeah, it was sort of difficult deciding what was just an unreliable narrator and what wasn’t.
How fascinating that you taught this, though! After reading the book, I definitely felt like I didn’t know enough going in, which made it sort of hard, being plopped in that context. I think I’ll have to add some more non-fiction history books to my reading this year, though, because I’d like to explore the Romanovs more, but maybe from a more historical perspective this time.
Sometimes it’s better to not know I can get a bit stroppy!!
I have this one on my TBR and am pretty excited for it. I’m sorry you didn’t like it as much as you wanted too. I also love Hate-to-love and I do agree that for it to work you need a build up something to make it switch. Thank you for sharing your views
I think if you go in expecting more historical fiction and less action, you’re probably more likely to enjoy it. That just isn’t a genre I particularly enjoy, and I didn’t realize that (I was thinking more along the lines of Fawkes, which had a lot more action!). I hope you enjoy it!