The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller

by Book4Hearts

“Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia–like the fingers on a hand, Tatiana the tallest, Anastasia the smallest, Maria the one most desperate for a ring. These are the daughters of the Tsar, the daughters of the last royal Russian family. Acclaimed author Sarah Miller writes with lyricism, criticism and true compassion as she tracks this loving cluster of sisters from the decks of their yacht to the prison walls of their final home. What do abdication and revolution mean to these young women? Told through each of their voices in alternating chapters, we see their day-to-day lives, in many ways, remain the same; they dote on their dogs, flirt with the soldiers, and are followed constantly by guards. But their desires for the future have all but disappeared. As conditions worsen and the provisional government loses power to the Bolsheviks, the girls huddle together to make sense of what is happening. At the same time hopeful and hopeless, naÏve and wise, their voices become a chorus singing the final song of Imperial Russia.”-goodreads

The Lost Crown was a fascinating novel. I love historical fiction, especially when it’s about a period that I might not have known much about before going into the novel. I didn’t know THAT much about Imperial Russia, so this book was very interesting and fresh for me.

The settings were ornate and as the points of view alternated things became different. An interesting point about this novel is that for every chapter the point of view is from a different one of the daughters. I found this really good, and switching up the perspectives did freshen the story a bit each time. The only qualm that I have with that is at times, especially near the beginning, the story switched character’s narratives without really changing, but after a while and getting used to it I didn’t feel that way at all. 


The way this story was done is just interesting, deciding to do it from the daughter’s points of view and showing their side of the story. Sarah Miller seems to have done fantastic job capturing what they would’ve been like and must have done an impeccable amount of research to pull of this book. Overall, it was a fascinating historical YA with very unique insight on the inside of a period of history that you might not have known much about before. A great read! 


Thank you to Simon&Schuster for giving me the opportunity to review this book. Reader’s Note: As always, my reviews are unbiased. Thanks! 🙂

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