I've just placed a hold on book #1 in the trilogy at the library. Anyone read these?
When Anne Peters, a young Englishwoman, is offered a new life in St Petersburg as governess to Count Kirov's children, she finds herself caught up in the intense lives of the family.
Fleur Hamilton , intelligent, independent, sensible, is much courted but never won. She believes herself to be completely level-headed, but as an unmarried Victorian female she is utterly innocent about love and the ways of men.
Visiting St Petersburg with her father, she meets Count Sergei Kirov. He puzzles as much as he excites her a vibrant, attractive, yet enigmatic man, with a tragic secret in his past. In the gilded splendour of this loveliest of cities, she falls in love with him, and with the mystical and barbaric beauty of his country. But England and Russia are on the brink of war with each other and Kirov is on the brink of a marriage of convenience with the daughter of Fleurs host.
From the sophistication of Imperial Petersburg to the rustic simplicity of the Crimea; from elegant house parties to the agony and squalor of besieged Sebastopol; Fleur follows her heart. Through passion, betrayal and suffering, she seeks to unravel the mystery of Kirov, and to understand what it is that binds the threads of her life so closely to his.
Emily Paget, poor relation of an earl, shocks her family with her determination to earn her own living, rather than submit to a respectable marriage. The adventure brings her to the notice of her eccentric Russian grandmother, who whisks her off to St Petersburg. There Emily finds the freedom she craves amongst the drawing-room revolutionaries; and falls passionately in love, never dreaming how close they are to real revolution.
When it comes, bloody and brutal, Emilys courage is tested to the full. Only she can save something from the wreck and bring the last of her family safe out of Russia. But she must leave behind the man she loves, not knowing even if he is alive or dead