Rainy Day Reads

I picked this up on a whim on my latest jaunt to the library and I am glad I did. I really enjoyed this book, it was so much fun. It was like a mix of Downton Abbey and Anastasia, and who doesn't want that? It is about Anna, a young Russian countess, whose family is forced to flee Russia during the revolution, and like so many of their countrymen they end up in London. Here they must find jobs to support themselves, often ending up in service to families who would once upon a time have been their quals. Anna finds a job as a housemaid in a big house in the country. This house is preparing for the weeding of its owner, the young Earl, who is marrying a heiress, partly out of love, partly to save the house from being closed down and sold off. Needless to say Anna and the earl, Rupert, hit it off, but he is forced to choose between following his heart or his mind. I really enjoyed all the characters in this book. They might seem a little caricatured, like Anna is the upbeat,...

I picked this up on a whim at the library. I think I have said a few times that I don’t really like reading crime/mystery novels, so you might wonder why I would pick this up, since it is blurbed as such. It’s because I’m a sucker for historical fiction. Especially ones that involve some sort of riddle or mystery. This book isn’t really historical fiction, as it is set in present day, but it is based on one of the most persistent conspiracy theories out there; the fact that some of the Romanovs survived the execution in 1918. The theory is largely based on the fact that the bodies of the son, Alexej, and one of the daughters, often believed to be Anastasia, but there is no certain proof, were not found along with the other bodies. However these last missing bodies were found in 2007, 3 years after the publication of this book, finally laying the Romanovs and the conspiracy theory to rest.   This book is about an American lawyer, Miles Lord, who has come to Russia to ...