The Youngest Lady in Waiting

Masha #2

by Mara Kay

Sequel to Masha. As lady-in-waiting to the Grand Duchess, a young girl finds her loyalties divided during the uprising of December 1825.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction, Russia, Childrens

279 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

The author of a number of children's novels, many of them works of historical fiction set in Russia or Yugoslavia, Mara Kay was (according to the dust-jacket blurb of The Burning Candle) "of Russian extraction, was brought up in Yugoslavia, but has lived in America since 1950."

Reviews

[Allyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have spent months trying to find an affordable copy of this book. I first read it while I was in junior high and fell in love with the story. I'm very into tragedies, because I tend to leave a piece of my heart with the story when I finish reading it. It is my favorite book to this day, even though I haven't read it since I was probably 14. The cheapest copy I've been able to find is $500.00 So if anyone has a copy I can borrow or if you know of a library close by let me know!

[Clara Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved reading this book! I was able to read it at archive.org. Masha is such a great character and someone very real and relatable to me. I felt like I was watching history unfold in this book, and I learned so much about the events of the 1820's in Russia. Even though there were many sad things that happened, I am glad there was a happy ending for Masha. I have not read the book that comes before this one, but I would love to be able to read that one now, as well.

[CLM · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is hard to know which one I love better - this or Masha. Together, they form a fabulous two book series which recreates a bygone world of Russian aristocracy and a heroine who matures and finds unexpected happiness after a solitary and difficult childhood.

[Muff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading again. ILL copy from Odessa, Texas. Just as good the third time 'round. Reprint this please.

Just got my own copy. Rereading. ♥

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have vivid memories of borrowing this book, along with Masha and A Circling Star, from the North Melbourne library in the 1980s. I loved all three of them. It was with great delight that I discovered that they had been given modern reprints, and they my source of classic children's books could get them for me.

It took me a little while to find time to reread both Masha and this one, but I loved both of them all over again. It was so nice to reconnect with Masha again, right through from an 8 year old, to the married mother she is at the end. Mara Kay has a lovely turn of phrase and touch with character and the books were a delight to read.

I got my reprint copy of A Circling Star a week ago, and I'm very much looking forward to rereading that one too. I just have to get a couple of other things read first. I hope it won't be too long.

[grosbeak · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sequel to "Masha", this tale sees the gentle and sensitive Masha as a lady-in-waiting to the Grand Duchess Alexandra. Meanwhile, her vivacious and mischievous school friend Sophie spreads her wings in society and a lovematch with a young progressive landowner, and her cynical but not-as-mean-as-she-used-to-be school frenemy Sashette, miserable as a lady-in-waiting to the empress, makes clear-eyed schemes for a loveless marriage that will let her escape from her impoverished mother and grasping stepfather.

Masha-- torn between Sophie's cousins, the high-idealist revolutionary Sergei and the upright conservative pragmatist Michael -- just really wants to live in an old crumbling country estate with dim rooms, creaking floors, and ancient, loyal, serfs (and frankly: BIG MOOD except for the last part of that; generally speaking, I do not have much of a way to relate to this meek, religously-devout, ingenuous barinia protagonist-- except that I too love an old, dark wooden house with ancient well-used furnishings and crumbling pictures on the walls that creaks its lived-in decrepitude.)

And then Alexander dies, the Decembrist Uprising happens, and the last third of the book is rather dark: while Masha finds happiness in marriage, the estate of her dreams, and, eventually, children, Sophie follows her husband when he is condemned to Siberia for a bitter, hardscrabble existence where the dreams that they both had are broken by the deprivations and exile. Even though -- and this is hammered home like it's 1925 not 1825 -- the Revolutionaries were hopelessly idealistic because a revolution only means opening the floodgates for brutality, massacre, and the tyranny by the formerly downtrodden, a generation of bright-eyed idealists and intellectuals has been crushed (not to mention the people literally crushed by government cannon-fire) and Nicholas' reactionary turn only bodes worse to come. So Russian history is the history of misery, and the only thing to do is cultiver son dacha, I guess?

[Kristen Northrup · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another childhood favorite. Sequel to Masha, and I was randomly compelled to re-read them both recently. They hold up well. This book has much more history than the first. It's about the 1825 Decembrist uprising (one of the lesser-known and much less successful Russian revolutions; very much like the group in Les Miserables) and includes many real-life figures as characters. Not much is known about the author, who was originally from Russia, but I'm guessing she was White Russian aristocracy. The sympathy is all with the royals rather than the rebels. It's an unusual angle, but still an interesting one. The love triangle is transparent but some of the friendships are remarkably layered.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Masha better because: boarding school story, but I still enjoyed this one. It gave an interesting look at the Decembrist revolution and its place in Russia's history. It was surprisingly dark, and was a strange mishmash of a happy ending for our protagonist and a lot of depressing endings for her friends. So I wasn't sure how to feel about the ending, overall. But my interest in Russian history remains unabated, and this book was set in a time I didn't know much about, and I found that interesting.

[Sweetp-1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nostalgic read of one of my childhood favourites. It is a lot shorter than I remember it being (funnily enough)! MarginNotes Books has reprinted both Masha and Youngest Lady-in-Waiting and I am hopeful they will reprint more of Mara Kay's books in the future. It is so lovely to have a copy of these at long last.

[Deborah Pickstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sequel to Masha, this deals with the Decembrist uprising of 1825 in Russia - harbinger of what was to come almost 100 years later. Like the companion volume, this survived a return visit happily.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm almost sorry to find out there is a sequel to Masha ... it took me forever to get the first book through inter-library loan. :)

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book set in Russia beginning about 1825.
Found a paperback reprint in 2015. As good as I remembered.

[ECL · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absolutely ridiculous plot, but I enjoyed it anyway

[Sian · Rating 5 out of 5]

At a very unhappy time in my childhood I discovered sone lovely books to help me carry on and I have been retracing them ever since. I have absolutely no luck in finding either Masha or The littlest lady in Waiting so I remain nostalgically unsatisfied! I would so love to read them again! Even though I am 58.

[JKR · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Masha, but found the first 200 pages or so of this sequel a rather difficult slog, with a somewhat sketchy romance and social intrigue that seemed peripheral to the plot. However, the last 80 pages dealing with the Decembrist revolt were much more enjoyable, if darker than expected, and tied the story together well. Two stars for the first two thirds of the book, four stars for the latter third.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

A captivating read. Many thanks to Margin Note Books for republishing this.

[Karen Brunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading these reviews has made want to go and read both books again!