Set
in the early stages of revolution in St. Petersburg Russia during a period of
great civil unrest. The working class are getting poorer and more desperate
each day as they fight starvation, disease and injuries at unsafe factories
while the upper class continue to live their extravagant lifestyles.
Revolutionaries decide to take things into their own hands and begin to start
killing government officials and members of the upper class. This is the story
of Valentina Ivanova, daughter of the Minister of Finance to Tsar Nicholas II,
Minister General Nicholas Ivanov. In the summer of 1910, Valentina faces death
when she is attacked in the forest on her father’s land by Bolsheviks. Valentina
manages to evade her attackers and makes it home just in time to see her house
destroyed by a bomb. Valentina’s younger sister Katya is seriously injured in
the attack and becomes paralyzed as a result. Even though Valentina is born
into the upper class, all she wants to do is become a nurse, a station way
below her status, in order to take care of her sister Katya. She has no desire
to live the life her parents have planned – to marry her off to a Captain in
Tsar’s army for his money and for her to live the life of an upper class wife,
a life of tea parties and fancy dresses. Instead Valentina falls in love with
the dashing Danish “Viking” engineer Jens Friis, builder of tunnels for sewage
and water drains. Valentina is determined to live her life the way that she
wants to without disappointing her parents or her heart.
☆☆☆☆½
This
was the first book I have read by Kate Furnivall and I have just picked up “The
Russian Concubine” and “The Girl from Junchow” and they are waiting restlessly
on my bookshelf waiting to be read. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and I
thought that it was extremely well written. I have loved Russian history and
culture for years and I think that Furnivall did an excellent job in creating
the backdrop of St. Petersburg in the early 1900s. Furnivall creates exquisite characters
from Valentina, the intelligent, strong-willed upper class girl with the desire
to become a nurse; Arkin, the revolutionary with a heart and a soft spot for
one upper class family; Jens, the endearing engineer who wants to help the
working class even though they consider him the enemy. Furnivall manages to
create a vivid, fast-paced story that keeps the reader engaged from the very
first page to the very last sentence.
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