Snow Princess

by Victoria Foote

Tatyana was a princess of the Russian nobility. Her land was a country of glaring contrasts - the opulence of the court of St. Petersburg and the harsh existence of the Russian peasantry.

Gregory Grandison, a mysterious Englishman, fights for Tatyana's love. His path is a dangerous one because Tatyana is at the center of an intrigue which could prove disastrous to all.

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Sarah Mac · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Standard DNF 2-star. It's just not grabbing me -- too much telling about characters which inspire zero interest on my part. Whatever. I'm not sure whether it's the publisher (most Tapestry books don't seem to agree with me) or the setting (for yours truly, Russia is one of those tropes where you want to like it more than you actually do); either way, I don't care. *shrug*

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of a 2.5 middle ground here. The setting/starting point for this historical romance is very cool and something I haven't run across before - The Decemberist Revolution in Russia. There was a lot of clear and solid research behind the story and you felt the world come alive. I learned a lot. Any book that makes you bookmark something for further research is good. The place where it fell flat? The central romance. It kind of came out of nowhere because there was no subtext of developing love beneath the score and fighting. I see where the thought was; the love growing in parallel to Tatyana's understanding of the inequities of her beloved country but... Meh. It doesn't help that, while Tatyana seemed to be the same person but growing throughout, the Gregory at the start and the Gregory at the end were like different beasts entirely. Frankly, I would have enjoyed reading the romance of Sophia and Arkady more. Oh, well.