Historical Tidbit: Rise and Fall of the Romanovs

Did you know...that both the first and the last Tsar of Russia were tangled up with the Romanov Clan?

It's true!

These are the grand-duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia, and Maria in 1914, not so long before the Boleshevik Revolution that led to their execution, along with the their mother Alexandra and their father, Nicholas II, last Tsar of Russia. These beautiful girls were raised as royalty, but at these respective ages had relatively little time left to live.

Russia has a fascinating history. The Romanov family wasn't always considered royalty. They were simply a family of powerful nobles, until the mid-sixteenth century when Ivan the Terrible, first Tsar of unified Russia chose one Anastasia Romanovna as his bride. It's interesting to me that both the first and last Tsars in Russian history were entangled with the Romanovs.

Check out the story of how they were raised to royalty, through Ivan the Terrible, in Citadels of Fire. It hit shelves May 27th and is doing well among readers and critics. 

In a world where danger hides in plain sight and no one aspires to more than what they were born to, Inga must find the courage to break the oppressive chains she’s been bound with since birth.
As a maid in the infamous Kremlin, life in 16th-century Russia is bleak and treacherous. That is, until Taras arrives. Convinced that his mother’s death when he was a boy was no mere accident, he returned from England to discover what really happened. While there, he gains favor from the Tsar later known as Ivan the Terrible, the most brutal and notorious ruler ever to sit upon the throne of Russia. Ivan allows him to take a servant, and to save Inga from a brutal boyar intent on raping her, Taras requests Inga to stay in his chambers.

Up against the social confines of the time, the shadowy conspiracies that cloak their history, and the sexual politics of the Russian Imperial court, Inga and Taras must discover their past, plan for their future, and survive the brutality that permeates life within the four walls that tower over them all, or they may end up like so many citizens of ancient Russia: nothing but flesh and bone mortar for the stones of the Kremlin wall.

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