“Makes Game of Thrones look like a nursery rhyme.” –Daisy Goodwin, New York Times bestselling author of The Fortune Hunter “[Alpsten] recounts this remarkable woman’s colourful life and times.” –Count Nikolai Tolstoy, historian and author Before there was Catherine the Great, there was Catherine Alexeyevna: the first woman to rule Russia in her own right. Ellen Alpsten’s rich, sweeping debut … to rule Russia in her own right. Ellen Alpsten’s rich, sweeping debut novel is the story of her rise to power.
St. Petersburg, 1725. Peter the Great lies dying in his magnificent Winter Palace. The weakness and treachery of his only son has driven his father to an appalling act of cruelty and left the empire without an heir. Russia risks falling into chaos. Into the void steps the woman who has been by his side for decades: his second wife, Catherine Alexeyevna, as ambitious, ruthless and passionate as Peter himself.
Born into devastating poverty, Catherine used her extraordinary beauty and shrewd intelligence to ingratiate herself with Peter’s powerful generals, finally seducing the Tsar himself. But even amongst the splendor and opulence of her new life–the lavish feasts, glittering jewels, and candle-lit hours in Peter’s bedchamber–she knows the peril of her position. Peter’s attentions are fickle and his rages powerful; his first wife is condemned to a prison cell, her lover impaled alive in Red Square. And now Catherine faces the ultimate test: can she keep the Tsar’s death a secret as she plays a lethal game to destroy her enemies and take the Crown for herself?
From the sensuous pleasures of a decadent aristocracy, to the incense-filled rites of the Orthodox Church and the terror of Peter’s torture chambers, the intoxicating and dangerous world of Imperial Russia is brought to vivid life. Tsarina is the story of one remarkable woman whose bid for power would transform the Russian Empire.
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Though it took me a while to read this book, it wasn’t bc of the book itself. It’s bc I would come across something or someone that I wanted to know more about, so I would quit reading and look that thing or person I wanted to know more about and usually that would lead me somewhere else.
This was an epic book to me and in my opinion one of the best I have read this year. Marta is just a slave girl in Germany when a nobleman comes upon her. This changes her life immensely. She will one day be known as Catherine I of Russia.
There is murder, love, heartache, adultery, wars and loss in this book. So, this is Historical Fiction it read to me as just history. Alpsten researched this book well and you can tell that by reading it.
Alpsten wrote in away that made me feel as though I was right there living Marta/Catherine’s life. It was not an easy one. In away she was never had a true home. She lived by Peter I’s whims. She never really knew what one day from the other would bring.
I recommend this book, if you love historical fiction. Just don’t be like me and look everything up, or it may take you a week to read
Thanks to Netgalley for the Kindle version of this book.
4 stars
Tsarina opens with the death scene of Peter the Great in the Winter Palace in 1725. Catherine, his second wife, secures his last will before anyone else is able to see it. This is the opening chapter. The reader wonders what will happen. The author, Ellen Alpsten, takes us back in time to the story of a young girl named Marta and traces her life from poverty to the vast riches of becoming Catherine I, the Tsarina.
The first half of this book was exhausting for me emotionally. This young girl survived rape (warning explicit scenes), hunger, extreme cold, beatings,…Marta also found comfort some of the time. She found comfort when taken in by Pastor Gluck’s family and later by Daria. I felt Aspen did a good job in describing the surroundings and what it must have been like for many people during this time. She made me cry, get angry, and also laugh at times while reading about Marta’s journey. I liked the first half much better than the second half when Marta becomes Catherine as she is constantly pregnant…and I felt a little repetitive. I will be thinking about this book for a long time. Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an ARC. This is my honest review.
I truly was pulled into this intoxicated, intense novel. The time when the rise of power was on the brink in Russia. During the time when it was unthinkable of a woman running Russia and being the most powerful person. Catherine wouldn’t have been able to get there without the help of her ally’s and her smart mind. She knew when to strike and strike hard.
At points she had to go against the grain. At points this was a hard decision to come by. I found the book to be one of many tools used o look into the world where women struggle with men in the rise of powering , and where they stood at. Catherine wasn’t sitting down and letting the man make her decisions. This book will lead on the highs and lows of suspense, surprise, betrayal and tragedy.
I enjoyed the romance in the book. This help give the story some light hearted moments.
I really enjoyed reading this story. Even though you know that this story was fiction the author made it feel like you were there and that it was real. I was hoping that the way it ended there would be another story.
WOW. The lavish life of the aristocrats is told to us, page after page be a brilliant author. We start with the death of Peter the Great and his end of rule in Russia. Peter’s 2nd wife wants power since no rightly heir, a son, is available.
She begs, pleads, commands his officers to keep Peter’s death a secret as long as possible.
Then we go back to 1699 when Catherine is poor but intelligent and beautiful. She overcomes her common birth by entering the life of the ruler’s court. Catherine knows Peter can easily turn, after all his last wife is locked in a dungeon while Catherine is surrounded by lust, wine, food, and secrets.
The author has created a novel that is decant and opulent as the classic War and Peace.
Read and soak in all offerings of a world we will never know anything about as we learn how Catherine the Tsarina transformed the Russian monarchy.
I do adore any novels about the Romanov empire and Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten didn’t disappoint.
First let me say, Alpsten masterfully captured the dark, somber reality of Russia in the early 1700’s. I could almost feel the bleak weather, the hunger, and the misery of Catherine’s (a that time Marta’s) early life. Tsarina opens with the death of Peter the Great as Catherine and his advisors determine what will be told outside the walls of his death chamber. From there we jump back to 1699, and young Marta, a nine-year-old girl who is sold into servitude. We’re pulled along as Marta endures the bleak and often traumatic reality of a woman in service until the moment when she is crowned Catherine I, Empress of Russia.
Tsarina deals with a number of dark issues including sexual assault, suicide, murder, and war. It’s definitely the darkest account of Catherine I I’ve read, but it was captivating, nonetheless—the dark side of a dream.
*I received a copy of Tsarina from St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*
I just reviewed Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten. #NetGalley
Fantastic read! There are many books out there about Tsar Peter the Great and his Tsarina Catherine. This was so well written. Yes, there are a few writers liberties, but over all very factual of that time period. I have been to St. Petersburg and the city is breathtaking, but I now will see it through different eyes. There is a comment about it being built on bones and I now understand why. This is Catherine story, her climb up the ladder to become Tsarina. Her joys, her heartbreaks and a good insight in Court life in Russia. A must read for history buffs.
Catherine the 1st, second wife of emperor Peter The great came from humble origins. Marta (as she was called before crowned as Catherine the 1st. was a bought of a child of serfs when she was only nine years old. She became a washerwoman and was raped by her employer. Marta ran away. and almost became a prostitute when a twist of fate leads her to the court where she uses her beauty and intelligence to seduce the palace generals and eventually the Tzar Peter The Great. This leads her to become empress of Russia which is bittersweet having to deal with Peter’s mistress and eventually his death., This is an intriguing, entrancing well-written historical novel. It is very violent and sexy. The palace intrigue is Shakespearean and definitely outshines ”Game of Thrones.” lol. It just as cut-throat and scornful. You understand why Catherine had to do what she did to just survive. The descriptions of the palace and pageantry are vivid. You feel as if you’re really there. I have always been interested in Russian history. I’ve read many books about Russia, the Romanovs, the Russian Revolution as well as read many Russian Authors. This book reads like a classic Russian Novel. This is the first novel I’ve read by his author and will not be my last. I look forward to reading more from her. I’d like to thank Netgalley.com, the publisher as well as the author for providing me a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
This book was not what I expected!! I even feel like I must have read a different book that half of these reviewers. I’m not a prude and I read a lot of dark books and I read a lot of historical fiction; this was the first time that I felt the two have crossed. I don’t think I like it.
Though this is dubbed a historical fiction, I must warn you it blurs the edges of erotica in some areas with it’s numerous sex scenes from consensual to rape, straight to depravity of incestuous lesbionic acts. It can be hard to read at some points. There is torture, murder, and mayhem. I’m usually a fan of historical fiction but this is really just soft porn with a good plot (is there such a thing as erotic historicals?!?) .
While I did appreciate the world the author created – the great amount of detail she went into and the description that allowed me to see the world through the characters’ eyes was quite stunning. Beautiful even. I did not appreciate it used against me in graphic detail to describe lurid and violent acts. I felt like reading the blurb for this book was about one thing and thing reading it was something so much more darker.
I’m not spoiling it for you because this is based on a (duh!!) historical character, Marta, who became Catherine I. There is a lot of liberties that have been taken to sensationalize this book and story. To make the woman who was the Tsarina seem like a deviant. For me, too much focusing on sex took away from the story of the woman who was Marta. When all was said and done this story just made her seem like a conniving, power-hungry woman who used sex as a tool to get what she wanted or was used as a tool. Sad
NOTE: I received early access to this novel in exchange for writing an impartial review.
An absorbing and detailed historical novel about Russia’s first Tsarina, Catherine I (not the Great) who took over after the death of her husband, Peter the Great. It’s well-researched, deeply engaging, and a fascinating glimpse into the great divide between the peasant life into which Catherine was born and Peter’s hedonistic and opulent court.
While little is known about Catherine’s (born Marta) early years, Alpsten has done an admirable job of breathing life into her history by drawing on documentation of the life of serfs Russia in the late 1600s and early 1700s. Born poor but beautiful, Marta is not surprisingly treated as a commodity, abused by men with power or money or both. Happenstance places her in the orbit of a powerful man at the Tsar’s court, which is how she eventually comes to the notice of the Tsar himself.
By contrast, Peter the Great’s history is well-documented and Alpsten’s portrayal is quite nuanced. While known to most of us as the great Westernizer of a backward country, Peter does NOT come off as a hero. He is single-minded, egotistical, impulsive, and brutally violent. But as it turns out, Marta’s kindness, loyalty, and love seem to moderate Peter at times, which the author seems to suggest is responsible for both Marta’s 20 year hold on the ruler and her rags-to-riches rise to the exalted position of Tsarina.
You will also meet the expected cast of supporting characters — power-hungry boyars, women exchanging their beauty for financial security, a disappointing first-born heir, and clueless doctors administering poisonous treatments. There’s also plenty of war, famine, and infidelity in this male dominated world. So, lots of drama.
My criticisms of the book are few. There are a few places where the narrative seems to jump awkwardly. And I was disappointed with the contrived device the author used to cover the entirety of Catherine’s actual reign as Tsarina. But I learned a lot about a little-known woman who exercised great power at a time when most women were powerless. And I enjoyed nearly every minute of the read.
I thought this was a well written book. It kept my attention for the most part. I did think it was a bit too long . It seemed like the court of the Tsar, did nothing but eat, drink and screw. I guess they did a few battles too.
Thanks to Netgalley for the early copy
480 pages
3 and 1 / 2 stars
Russia in the 18th Century. A time of war, poverty and uncertain futures. Peter the Great is on the throne. Peter is an educated, well-traveled man who has certain ideas about governing Mother Russia.
Marta was a woman who was sold into servitude in her mid-teens. She was uneducated and from a very poor family of serfs. Her life was very hard, until she was taken in by a Lutheran family. The father was the local pastor and he and his wife were very kind and good people. But this did not last.
Russia and Sweden were at war. Two proud rulers who were only trying to one up the other and driving their countries further into poverty and strife.
Marta meets the companion of the very wealthy best friend of Tsar Peter. The two women get along famously well and when the decision is made to return to Moscow, her new friend asks Marta to go with her.
The rest of the book is Peter and Catherine Alexeyevna’s (as Peter renames Marta), enduring love for one another. This is where I got frustrated with the book.
I understood that the book was a biography of Peter’s second wife Catherine. However, it devolved into something else. I don’t care for romance novels and the tone of the book was not to my liking. It was well written and plotted, however. It read logically as it laid out Marta’s life. It illustrated well the ruling classes’ attitudes toward the serfs of Russia. The abject poverty and dire living conditions of the peasants and the total disregard that the “haves” had for them. It sowed the sheer scope of the country and the vastness of the empty plains. It was very good in describing the background.
I want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for forwarding to me a copy of this book for me to read, enjoy and review.
Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten is an excellent historical fiction (with a dash of biography as well but mostly fiction) of the life of Catherine I Empress of Russia.
We find that she came from humble origins with the given name of Marta, a Polish peasant, was able to escape a troubled and rough life, and ended up becoming not only the second wife of Peter the Great, but also Empress upon his death in 1725. I already knew a great deal about the Romanov dynasty, however it is always exciting to read about these historic figures in more of a fictionalized setting that is a bit more relaxed, then another history book.
Catherine, I feel, was a smart, creative, resourceful, cunning, fiesty, and amazing woman that came from peasant/serfdom to a successful marriage and other half of what some consider to be one of the greatest leaders of Russia’s history, and then the first female leader of a difficult and vast land.
The 1700s were a volatile and difficult time in Russia, and for a woman to be able to navigate through these preconceived gender roles, rise through the ranks, maneuver through the backstabbing and aggressive politics of aristocrats, and become one of the most powerful women in history, is nothing short of awe inspiring. Was she perfect? Nope. But there is no way she could have been and succeeded.
This book has it all. History, strong, real-life characters, romance, and intrigue kept my interest throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed.
For anyone that loves historical fiction, romance, Russian history, and power, this book is for you.
5/5 stars
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this excellent ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.