The Last Romanov by Dora Levy Mossanen

I love to read novels about the Romanovs, but unfortunately The Last Romanov fell flat for me. I don’t like to stop reading books, but I gave The Last Romanov one-hundred pages to capture my attention and it failed.  The novel was very jumpy with almost fragments of story.  It made it hard to pay attention to the plot.  Darya is a distant relative of the last Czar of Russia, Nicholas II and his family.  She has a romantic childhood marred by tragedy and becomes a nanny to the Tsarevich, Alexei.  The story flashes forward to the future where a 104 year old Darya is obsessed with finding Alexei and restoring the Romanov dynasty.

I usually like magic in books, but this one was too mystical and strange for me.  I know Darya possessed mystical powers, but I had a hard time believing that a 104 Darya would be so sharp and spry.  I was also bothered by the historical inaccuracies.  In particular, the hunting of “aurochs” plays a key role more than once in the plot.  The only problem is that the species was extent hundreds of years before this book takes place.

Book Source:  Review Copy from Sourcebooks.