By Merrilyn Thomas
Publisher: Medlar Tree Publishing
ISBN 978-0-9576491-2-5
First published 28 June 2024
Price: £9.99
St Petersburg, 1917. The First World War has turned Europe into a battlefield. Lucy King, English governess to a little Russian princess, despairs as her world falls apart in the bloody chaos of the Russian Revolution. Swept up in a tide of desperate refugees, she flees to Crimea where, alongside survivors of the Tsar’s family, she is trapped. The Bolsheviks close in from the east and the German army advances through Ukraine. British spies draw Lucy into a plot to rescue the Tsar’s mother.
Inspired by a true story, this sweeping narrative follows Lucy’s transformation from a demure Edwardian lady into a woman fighting for survival in a world that is disintegrating around her. Caught up in conspiracies and murder, she is determined to save the little princess she will not abandon. This is a story of courage and devotion amid the devastation of war.
St Petersburg, December 1916
Lucy returned to the damp greyness of St Petersburg at the beginning of December. The Neva had not yet frozen over. The streets were not yet blanketed in snow. She returned to a city of misery. After the beauty and tranquillity of Kislovodsk, it was even harder to bear. The bread queues stretched ever further down the streets, hundreds of women, heads bowed, muffled in whatever garments they could find to keep out the chill while small children huddled against their mother’s legs, seeking warmth. It was a pitiful sight, tugging at Lucy’s heartstrings.
And in the barracks, thousands of soldiers herded together without beds or food or clothes, soldiers who had fled from the Front, the numbers increasing daily as the trains slowly ground their way across the Russian plains, while officials endlessly discussed what to do with them and then forgot about them.
Lucy mourned as she watched the disintegration of this great country and witnessed the hardships that its people suffered. But what could she do? Her terrible helplessness in the face of the tragedy that was unfolding in front of her only increased her misery. And all the while there was a feeling of menace in the air, a mood of despair that was turning to hate. People muttered about revolution. They looked for someone to blame, for someone responsible for this chaos and ineptitude. …
Vivid characters and a sweeping narrative bring the stirring events of a hundred years ago alive. This is a book that has much to say to us.
We sense how history casts its shadow before it – and how deeply we remain affected by these troubled times to this very day.
Jan Arriens, former diplomat and author of Welcome to Hell.