Russia, 1910. Valentina Ivanova is the darling of St. Petersburg's elite aristocracy-until her romance with a Danish engineer creates a terrible scandal and her parents push her into a loveless engagement with a Russian count. Meanwhile, Russia itself is bound for rebellion. With the Tsar and the Duma at each other's throats, and the Bolsheviks drawing their battle lines, the elegance and opulence of Tsarist rule are in their last days. And Valentina will be forced to make a choice that will change not only her own life, but the lives of those around her forever...
I appreciated the way Valentina was a rebel within her own family and how she looked for a way to better herself even if that wasn't expected of her. Furnivall writes a lovely love story intertwined with the story of the revolution. She challenges the characters to make decisions they never thought they would have to make.
I was impressed with how now matter what was going on with Valentina she kept going back to the one family that she met during one of the worker's strikes. I like to think that unlikely meeting that morning, grew Valentina as a character and opened her eyes to much more.
Even though the ending of the book left the reader wanting more (and in turn this book is a prequel to one Furnivall's other books), the plot wasn't left hanging.
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