This HaBO is from Erica and she’s trying to track down a book she found at a library sale:
It was a gothic romance I got from a public library sale in, like, 1995, so who knows when it was actually published.
Anyway, the heroine is…not particularly memorable; although I do remember a very vivid description of her amber hair. Anyway, she was for some reason hanging out with a bunch of Russians, who had fled the country after the Revolution. In this book, I learned that only peasants speak Russian; the aristocrats speak French. That Germans Have the Fatherland, but no one else has quite the same primal connection Russians have for Mother Russia. (I got the feeling that this book was very pro-Czar.) 😉
Oh, one of girls winds up bring a lost Romanov princess — not Anastasia, though, which was interesting. And I learned a weird little nifty way to remember the daughters of Czar Nicholas II (because that is obviously information one needs to have on hand): OTMA — Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia. The hero was, of course, wicked and kinda scary and dark brooding. And there might be jewelry involved? Lord, I don’t know. Anyone have any ideas?
I’m very curious about this book! Sound familiar to anyone?
It sounds like something written by Hedwig Courths-Mahler?
I don’t know who wrote this, but I want to read it!
I was thinking once a princess by Johanna Lindsey but I think that was prerevolution
It almost sounds like a Victoria Alexander, but I think her foreign country royalty were fictional places.
I went to Zoya from Danielle Steele. But it’s been at least twenty years since I read Steele, so that might be iffy. The wikipedia lines up with some of what you said though.
It’s not Zoya, which I read only a few years ago. While that one features Russian emigrees, it certainly doesn’t fit the description of Gothic romance. It was more of a family saga.
Kinda sounds like the Kirov Trilogy by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles: Anna, Fleur, and Emily are the three books.
@Olivia I was thinking Victoria Alexander too, I’m pretty sure I read some with Russian royalty but I’m doubtful they were set in the 20th century.
Really want to know this one!
This makes me think of a book by Eva Ibbotson. But the heroine in this particular book is a countess, who works as a maid in an English country estate, not a princess.
I was going to suggest At the King’s Command by Susan Wiggs, but that was originally published in 2009. (It was featured recently in a BN low price book deal, and when I saw it I vaguely remembered reading it and also remembered this HABO).
Also, now I realize the time period is all wrong…
Constance Heaven wrote a series of books with a Russian setting that I read as a teenager, but I think those were pre-Revolution.
There is a list at Goodreads which features books that involve Romance in Russia/and or Russian Heros and Heroines. One possibility from that list might be Blood and Sable by Carol Kane (published in 1988). Yes, I know I got a wee bit obsessed with this, but I have a very vague memory of having read this book.
@Hannawy, I *loved” Constance Heaven’s books, and still have a couple of ancient paperbacks that have survived purges. (Same with Ira J. Morris.) I read everything I could that was set in Russia. Unfortunately, I don’t recognize this books, although I’m hoping someone else will. I’m pretty sure it’s not Ibbotson’s The Secret Countess/A Countess Below Stairs, btw.
I wanna say that russian book of Lisa Kleypas, but it’s a stretch.