A Daughter of the Nobility

This tragic love story follows Tatyana, the proud descendant of Russia's founding princes, from the opulence and privilege of St. Petersburg in 1897 through the brutality of revolution and civil war

YA As the daughter of the Tsar's trusted advisor and the betrothed of Stefan, the heir presumptive to the Polish kingdom, Princess Tatyana Silomirskaya leads a privileged life, including a special friendship with the Romanov princesses. She studies science with the brilliant Professor Alexis Holveg and quietly prepares herself for a medical career, only to have this ambition swept away by the long-absent Stefan. Political rivalries between Poland and Russia threaten to destroy the romance, but when the Great War begins, 18-year-old Tatyana serves as a nurse on the Western Front where Stefan is assigned. The horrors of battlefield surgery and the intense suffering of the doggedly determined common people hasten Tatyana's maturity. She faces the 1917 Revolution and its bloody aftermath with two loyal house servants and Holveg; believing Stefan to be dead, she marries Holveg, only to have Stefan return and demand that she pick up her former fairy-tale existence with him. Coming to terms with reality, she sheds the romantic ideals of a dying life style and accepts the practical world of ordinary wife, mother and medical student. As this romantic novel sweeps through the dramatic events of the Great War, the 1917 Revolution and the Civil War, Borovsky presents believable historical figures as well as a courageous young heroine whose lives are shattered and rebuilt during these terrifying times. YA readers will find this story of Tatyana's development from a spoiled daughter of nobility to a responsible young woman credible and enjoyable. Mary T. Gerrity, Queen Anne School, Upper Marlboro, Md.
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