Stunning, chilling and poignant, this is how history books should be written.
Alison Weir
That perfect but rare blend of history, sense of place, human tragedy, drama and atmosphere
- Susan Hill,
Helen Rappaport brilliantly assembles the intricacies of the story in untroubling prose with some colourful re-imaginings to make this account utterly compelling.
Daily Telegraph
To coincide with the anniversary (of the death's of the Romanovs), their last wretched days have been chronicled in an explosive new book. Using previously overlooked documents and witness accounts, it tells the story of the family's final moments in unprecedented detail.
Daily Mail
A deeply touching anniversary tribute
Independent on Sunday
An effective and engaging synthesis ... With skill and imagination [Rappaport] juxtaposes the escalating chaos outside with the day-to-day tedium of the prisoners ... The result is an intriguing personal angle...
Sunday Times
To coincide with the anniversary (of the death's of the Romanovs), their last wretched days have been chronicled in an explosive new book. Using previously overlooked documents and witness accounts, it tells the story of the family's final moments in unprecedented detail
Daily Mail
Skilfully weaves together the grimly repetitive routine of the doomed family with the high drama engulfing the killers ... Freshly compelling
New Statesman
Rappaport has succeeded in capturing a frenetic, terrifying period of modern history and showing how a brutal, but human, man and his family became victims of the pent-up fury of the people he had systematically ground underfoot
Sunday Tribune (Ireland)
Well researched ... Helen Rappenport successfully evokes the claustrophobic atmosphere within the house
Saturday Telegraph
A vivid and compelling account of the final thirteen days of the Romanovs, counting down to the last, tense hours of their lives.
On 4 July 1918, a new commandant took control of a closely guarded house in the Russian town of Ekaterinburg. His name was Yakov Yurovsky, and his prisoners were the Imperial family: the former Tsar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and their children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexey. Thirteen days later, at Yurovsky's command, and on direct orders from Moscow, the family was gunned down in a blaze of bullets in a basement room.
This is the story of those murders, which ended 300 years of Romanov rule and began an era of state-orchestrated terror and brutal repression.
A vivid and compelling account of the final thirteen days of the Romanovs, counting down to the last, tense hours of their lives.
On 4 July 1918, a new commandant took control of a closely guarded house in the Russian town of Ekaterinburg.