I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Romanov by Nadine Brandes Published by Thomas Nelson ISBN: 9780785217251
on May 7, 2019
Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Romance, Royalty
Pages: 352
Read it as: eARC
Source: Netgalley
My rating:
Check it out in Goodreads
Synopsis
From the author of Fawkes comes a magical take on the story of Anastasia Romanov.
“I am obsessed with this book! A magical twist on history that will have Anastasia fans wishing for more.” —Evelyn Skye
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 either to release the spell and deal with the consequences, or to 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 makes me so, so sad because I had all the reasons in the world to want to fall in love with this book. I wanted to promote the heck out of it, but I think it ends with this review.
For starters, I was so excited to have received a galley of this book since the premise sounded amazing and I couldn’t wait to read this Anastasia story with magic. But I couldn’t get past the first few chapters. I think it was another case of what happened with Nevernight. It may just not have been the right time for me.
I had problems with the pacing
Life has gotten super busy lately, so I want to be able to read on the go and for the stories I read to be read quickly. So when I realize it’s taking too long to read a story… It tends to get drawn out while I read other books. I liked the characters and was really looking forward to seeing the conflict develop, but for me it was taking a bit too long, so I had to pause it.
For example, at first there was so much tension going on, what with the Romanov’s confined in one place and then the announcement that her father was being taken somewhere else. I knew there was so much at stake and that it wouldn’t end well, but I just wasn’t feeling it as much as I should have to keep going.
I loved the siblings
Specially the relationship between Anastasia and her brother. She was so concerned for him, and even I got really scared for him, being vulnerable in such an already difficult situation. I wanted them to succeed and for him to feel better and be happy. His character was one of the high points of what I read.
Coincidentally, I also started watching the Netflix documentary about the Romanovs and I loved seeing the parallels between the story and the real lives of these people. It breaks my heart how things ended, and I might just pick this book up in the future again just to see how the author ends it.
This is a book that while I didn’t finish it, I don’t feel like discouraging people from reading. I completely feel like it was a case of ‘it’s me, not you’.
Great review, Pamela! Sometimes the state our lives in do affect our reading taste. Like you, when I’m busy, I like to read either fast-paced fantasy or light contemporary, not something in the middle 🙂 I’m bummed I didn’t fell in love with this one either, the pacing was really slow and the historical and fiction elements didn’t flow really well.
I hope your next read will be better!
Tasya @ The Literary Huntress recently posted this awesome thing…Mini Reviews: Recent Reads, part III // Myths, killer woods, and essay collection from women who reported from battlefield