In July 1918 seven members of the royal house of Russia and four of their party were massacred by the Bolsheviks. For many years afterwards, rumour had it that the youngest daughter had miraculously survived. Her name was Anastasia Romanov. Ever since the slaying conspiracy theories have been rife and plenty of pretenders have laid claim to the Romanov name. In fact, all but two of the bodies, supposedly those of Marie and heir apparent Alexei, were finally laid to rest in 1998. Divided into five parts, spanning 1918 to 1929, Falconer's story traces the imagined life of Anastasia and her sad quest for a memory erased by the trauma of tragedy. We follow her and other Russian émigrés as they try to rebuild their lives in Shanghai, Berlin, London and New York. These cleverly drawn historical vignettes depicting the political, social and economic makeup of those times frame whimsical examinations of the nature of memory and mystery, truth and myth, loss and yearning, and male and female experiences of love and sex. What we are left with is a strong sense of the fundamental human desire for a happy ending. Recommended reading, despite the fifth part's melodramatic turn of events.

Paula Grunseit is library manager at SBS Radio, Sydney. C. 2003 Thorpe-Bowker and contributors

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2004, Thorpe-Bowker