The Winter Palace: A Novel of Catherine the Great

Historical fiction
By Eva Stachniak

One wonderful benefit I've received from starting this "book club" is a widening of my perspective. Instead of seeing each book as a single experience, I now have an awareness of how it fits in the scope of my reading. Stories remind me of something I read in college, or of why I like or dislike certain genres. I reflect on where I got the book and what that says about me as a reader. And often I end up comparing books to others by the same author, or, as in this case, by a different author in the same genre.

This book came to me in one of my favorite ways: I requested it from the library because I saw it on a book list, forgot I requested it, and was delightfully surprised when it showed up in my mail box. (By the way, my almost-six-year-old daughter has also discovered the joys of books by mail. She's a little more...impatient? persistent? Let's just say we check the mail a lot.)

So I requested this because it sounded like a variation on the many Philippa Gregory books I've read (The Other Boleyn Girl, The Constant Princess, etc), just not set in England. Don't get me wrong, I love Brit Lit and British history. But I was ready to branch out. And also, Gregory's books overlap so much, with the same real characters being either on the way in or out of power, or being part of the previous or next generation. This story is a start of something new. From the perspective of a palace servant, the plot starts with Elizabeth, empress of Russia in the 1700's, as she looks for a bride for her young nephew and heir. When she chooses Sophie, a minor princess from Germany, there is much political maneuvering and very little romance. Sophie is renamed Catherine after she joins the Orthodox church and through much more political maneuvering and only a little more romance, becomes Catherine the Great, the next empress of Russia. Without her husband. Hmmm.  Like most historical fiction, we know the outcome before the beginning, but it still unfolds in interesting ways, and with some beautiful description of Russian imperial life, family relationships, and the power of friendship.

While the new blood and setting is refreshing, one complaint I have is the timeline. Like with Gregory's books, I was a little confused when sometimes a few weeks take chapters to explicate but other weeks take sentences. I know some authors can do that successfully, but this hops, skips, and jumps so much I was disoriented.

Also like Gregory, Stachniak is going to continue her story in another book about Catherine. I haven't decided yet if I'll read it. Since the original appeal was a new story line, I'm thinking no. Please let me know if you read it and what you think!