Title: Romanov.
Author: Nadine Brandes.
Format: Audiobook.
Publisher: Thomas Nelson.
Page count: 337.
Release day: May 7th 2019.
Genre: YA, fantasy, retelling.
Rating: 3 stars.
What is it about? (Summary from GoodReads)
The history books say I died.
They don’t know the half of it.
Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single
mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in
Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik
army is after them, and he’s hunted Romanov before.
Nastya’s only chances of saving herself and her
family are to either release the spell and deal with the consequences, or
enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average
Bolshevik. Nastya has only dabbled in magic, but it doesn’t frighten her half
as much as her growing attraction to Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might
even like her.
That is, until she’s on one side of a firing
squad . . . and he’s on the other.
My thoughts:
I really like Nadine Brandes previous book, Fawkes (review here!), so I knew I had to pick this one up! It still took me half a year to get to it though..
I’m not really sure what to say about this book, I enjoyed it but I was also a bit bored at parts..
The story was very interesting, I loved seeing the characters and their relations develop!
I think my main ‘problem’ with this book was that it is a very character driven book, which I can really enjoy, but I need some action once in a while. Of course there was some action, but only a little bit. And since I was listening to this one audio, in small pieces at a time, it wasn’t grasping my attention that much. There weren’t really parts that gave me the feeling that I HAD to continue on, which was sad.
The ending was so beautiful! It really did make up for some of the parts were I was bored!
This has nothing to do with this particular book, but I think I should not listen to Russian inspired books on audio anymore. I struggled a bit with this one, I struggled with Spinning silver and the bear and the nightingale. I think the Russian names are too hard for me to follow along or something. But lesson learned, next time I read the physical book! (no stars taken for this of course!)
I absolutely love Nadine Brandes writing, and I will definitely pick up whatever she will write next!
I know this is a very short review, I just don’t have that much to say.. I think this book is perfect for you if you enjoy character driven books!
The Russian name issue is what got between me and finishing War and Peace. I needed a whole chart! Love this review – so balanced. If I feel the need for a character driven story, I will check this one out!
Thanks
I can imagine that haha!
Great review! I had the same problems with this book as you did, I think. Too much character, not enough action. I found it too easy to set down. I’m really interested to see what Nadine Brandes releases next, because I think she’s got some really unique ideas.
Luckily we’re not alone haha!
Yeah me too!
This is one that I really wanted to read when I first heard about it coming out but then never added to my TBR. Kind of glad, I’ve seen a lot of average things about it and I have other books I need to get to, still I’m glad it wasn’t a bad book. 🙂
Yeah same for me! But I did want to try since I enjoyed her first book!
This ones on my TBR although I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it as I have a fair few books that I want to read first. Plus I’ve seen some fairly mixed reviews but I still hope to read it at some point next year as I find Anastasia fascinating (:
I hope you will enjoy if/when you get to it!