Tsarina

by Ellen Alpsten

As many of you know, I am enthralled with historical fiction. This is what books were made for- to take me away from the dusting and vacuuming, the robo calls, the dismal weather, and place me in a whole new world. Historical fiction is the gift of excitement, insight, surprise, and entertainment.

How often do you get to walk beside a Tsarina from Imperial Russia, a Tsarina who is described as “Serf”, “Murderess”, “Empress”? From the lowest of the low, to the mystical heights of Tsar Peter’s court, the story of Catherine I will bring you to a world of passion and power. I am happy to share this new release with you, thanks to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press. Add this to the top of your reading list, if you are ready for a high-takes world of startling beauty and power.

“Makes Game of Thrones look like a nursery rhyme.” —Daisy Goodwin, New York Times bestselling author of The Fortune Hunter

“[Alpsten] recounts this remarkable woman’s colourful life and times.” —Count Nikolai Tolstoy, historian and author 

Before there was Catherine the Great, there was Catherine Alexeyevna: the first woman to rule Russia in her own right. Ellen Alpsten’s rich, sweeping debut novel is the story of her rise to power.

St. Petersburg, 1725. Peter the Great lies dying in his magnificent Winter Palace. The weakness and treachery of his only son has driven his father to an appalling act of cruelty and left the empire without an heir. Russia risks falling into chaos. Into the void steps the woman who has been by his side for decades: his second wife, Catherine Alexeyevna, as ambitious, ruthless and passionate as Peter himself.

Born into devastating poverty, Catherine used her extraordinary beauty and shrewd intelligence to ingratiate herself with Peter’s powerful generals, finally seducing the Tsar himself. But even amongst the splendor and opulence of her new life—the lavish feasts, glittering jewels, and candle-lit hours in Peter’s bedchamber—she knows the peril of her position. Peter’s attentions are fickle and his rages powerful; his first wife is condemned to a prison cell, her lover impaled alive in Red Square. And now Catherine faces the ultimate test: can she keep the Tsar’s death a secret as she plays a lethal game to destroy her enemies and take the Crown for herself?

From the sensuous pleasures of a decadent aristocracy, to the incense-filled rites of the Orthodox Church and the terror of Peter’s torture chambers, the intoxicating and dangerous world of Imperial Russia is brought to vivid life. Tsarina is the story of one remarkable woman whose bid for power would transform the Russian Empire.

JENA’S REVIEW

Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a great story, although it is not about Catherine the Great. This is the story of Catherine I, Empress of Russia from 1724 to 1727. Catherine herself tells us her life story and the story of her Russia in the first person.

The book begins with the death of Tsar Peter the Great. Who will be his successor? History tells us that it will be his wife, Catherine I. But how she gets to this exalted level is more amazing than any Netflix series.

A long book, but readable, exciting and engaging, you will be immersed in the daily life of Russia. Some of the story is fantastic and epic- Peter’s creation of St. Petersburg, the long Great Northern War, the banquets, feasts and celebrations. You will have a ringside seat by Catherine. You will also see and experience many horrors and atrocities- illness and intrigue, murder, revenge and rape were all a regular part of life in the Imperial Court of Peter. The author makes full use of the sights, sounds, even smells of the times.

But best of all, you will get to know Catherine and her magical story of beating impossible odds. She began as a serf, sold to a passing merchant for one silver coin. Her life was horrible, until she was raped by soldiers and rescued by a general in Peter’s army. While in the army camp, she was befriended by a woman close to Peter, named Daria. They remained friends for life.

Catherine’s beauty, wits, and courage paired with a keen understanding of human nature bonded her to Peter the Great, first as a lover, then wife, and finally, co-regent. She experienced the sorrow of losing many of her children, failing to give birth to a male heir who survived past infancy. Somehow, she managed to claw her way into Peter’s heart and remain connected with him until his death.

An amazing time in history is brought to life in this consuming book. Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance review copy. This is my honest review.

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EXTRACT of TSARINA

Prologue

In the Winter Palace, 1725 

He is dead. My beloved husband, the mighty tsar of all the Russias, has died—and just in time.

Moments before death came for him, Peter called for a quill and paper to be brought to him in his bedchamber in the Winter Palace. My heart almost stalled. He had not forgotten, but was going to drag me down with him. When he lost consciousness for the last time and the darkness drew him closer to its heart, the quill slipped from his fingers. Black ink spattered the soiled sheets; time held its breath. What had the tsar wanted to settle with that last effort of his tremendous spirit?

I knew the answer.

The candles in the tall candelabra filled the room with a heavy scent and an unsteady light; their glow made shadows reel in corners and brought the woven figurines on the Flemish tapestries to life, their coarse faces showing pain and disbelief. Outside the door, the voices of the people who’d stood there all night were drowned out by the Febru- ary wind rattling furiously at the shutters. Time spread slowly, like oil on water.  Peter had pressed himself into our souls like his signet ring  in hot wax. It seemed impossible that the world hadn’t careened to a halt at his passing. My husband, the greatest will ever to impose itself on Russia, had been more than our ruler. He had been our fate. He was still mine.

The doctors—Blumentrost, Paulsen, and Horn—stood silently around Peter’s bed, staring at him, browbeaten. Five kopecks’ worth of

medicine, given early enough, could have saved him. Thank God for the quacks’ lack of good sense.

Without looking, I could feel Feofan Prokopovich, the archbishop of Novgorod, watching me, along with Alexander Menshikov. Pro- kopovich had made the tsar’s will eternal and Peter had much to thank him for. Menshikov, on the other hand, owed his fortune and influence to Peter. What was it Peter had said when someone tried to blacken Alexander Danilovich’s name to him by referring to his murky business dealings? “Menshikov is always Menshikov, in all that he does!” That had put an end to that.

Dr. Paulsen had closed the tsar’s eyes and crossed his hands on his breast, but he hadn’t removed the scroll, Peter’s last will and testament, from his grasp. Those hands, which were always too dainty for the tall, powerful body, had grown still, helpless. Just two weeks earlier he had plunged those very hands into my hair, winding it round his fingers, inhaling the scent of rosewater and sandalwood.

“My Catherine,” he’d said, calling me by the name he himself had given me, and he’d smiled at me. “You’re still a beauty. But what will you look like in a convent, shorn, and bald? The cold there will break you, your spirit, even though you’re strong as a horse. Do you know that Evdokia still writes to me begging for a second fur, poor thing! What a good job you can’t write!” he’d said, laughing.

It had been thirty years since Evdokia had been banished to the convent. I’d met her once. Her eyes shone with madness, her shaven head was covered in boils and scabs from the cold and the filth, and  her only company was a hunchbacked dwarf to serve her in her cell. Peter had ordered the poor creature have her tongue cut out, so in response to Evdokia’s moaning and laments, all she was able to do was burble. He’d been right to believe that seeing Evdokia would fill me  with lifelong dread.

I knelt at Peter’s bedside and the three doctors retreated to the twi- light at the edge of the room, like crows driven from a field: the birds Pe- ter had been so terrified of in the last years of his life. The tsar had called open season on the hapless birds all over his empire. Farmers caught, killed, plucked, and roasted them for reward. None of this helped Pe- ter: silently, at night, the bird would slip through the padded walls and locked doors of his bedchamber. Its ebony wings blotted the light and in

their cool shadow, the blood on the tsar’s hands never dried. His fingers were not yet those of a corpse, but soft, and still warm. For a moment, the fear and anger of these past few months slipped from my heart like  a thief in the night. I kissed his hands and breathed in his familiar scent of tobacco, ink, leather, and the perfume tincture that was blended for his sole use in Grasse.

I took the scroll from his hand—it was easy enough to slide it out, although my blood thickened with fear and my veins were coated with frost and rime like branches in our Baltic winter. It was important to show everyone that I alone was entitled to do this—I, his wife, and the mother of his children. Twelve times I had given birth.

The paper rustled as I unrolled it. Not for the first time, I was ashamed of my inability to read, and I handed his last will to Feofan Prokopovich. At least Menshikov was as ignorant as I. Ever since the days when Peter first drew us into his orbit and cast his spell upon us, we had been like two children squabbling over their father’s love and attention. Batjushka tsar, his people called him. Our little father tsar.

Prokopovich must have known what Peter had in mind for me. He was an old fox with a sharp wit, as comfortable in heavenly and earthly realms. Daria had once sworn that he had three thousand books in     his library. What, if you please, can one man do with three thousand books? The scroll sat lightly in his liver-spotted hands now. After all, he himself had helped Peter draft the decree that shocked us all. The tsar had set aside every custom, every law: he wanted to appoint his own successor and would rather leave his empire to a worthy stranger than his own, unworthy child.

How timid Alexey had been when we first met, the spitting image of his mother, Evdokia, with his veiled gaze and high, domed forehead. He couldn’t sit up straight, because Menshikov had thrashed his back and buttocks bloody and sore. Only when it was too late did Alexey grasp his fate: in his quest for a new Russia, the tsar would spare no one, neither himself, nor his only son. You were no blood of my blood, Alexey, no flesh of my flesh, and so I was able to sleep soundly. Peter, though, had been haunted by nightmares from that day on.

My heart pounded against my lightly laced bodice—I was surprised it didn’t echo from the walls—but I met Prokopovich’s gaze as calmly as I could. I wriggled my toes in my slippers, as I could not afford to faint.

Prokopovich’s smile was as thin as one of the wafers he would offer in church. He knew the secrets of the human heart; especially mine.

“Read, Feofan,” I said quietly.

“Give everything to . . .” He paused, looked up, and repeated: “To . . .” Menshikov’s temper flared; he reared as if someone had struck him with a whip, like in the good old days. “To whom?” he snarled at Pro-

kopovich. “Pray tell, Feofan, to whom?”

I could hardly breathe. The fur was suddenly much too hot against my skin.

From Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten. Copyright © 2020 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

Author Bio:

ELLEN ALPSTEN was born and raised in the Kenyan highlands. Upon graduating from L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, she worked as a news anchor for Bloomberg TV London. Whilst working gruesome night shifts on breakfast TV, she started to write in earnest, every day, after work and a nap. Today, Ellen works as an author and as a journalist for international publications such as Vogue, Standpoint and CN Traveller. She lives in London with her husband, three sons and a moody fox red Labrador. Tsarina is her debut novel.