THE REBEL ROMANOV: Julie of Saxe-Coburg, the Empress Russia Never Had, not *quite* as advertised but enjoyable

THE REBEL ROMANOV: Julie of Saxe-Coburg, the Empress Russia Never Had
HELEN RAPPAPORT
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters comes the story of a courageous young Imperial Grand Duchess who scandalized Europe in search of freedom.

In 1795, Catherine the Great of Russia was in search of a bride for her grandson Constantine, who stood third in line to her throne. In an eerie echo of her own story, Catherine selected an innocent young German princess, Julie of Saxe-Coburg, aunt of the future Queen Victoria. Though Julie had everything a young bride could wish for, she was alone in a court dominated by an aging empress and riven with rivalries, plotting, and gossip―not to mention her brute of a husband, who was tender one moment and violent the next. She longed to leave Russia and her disastrous marriage, but her family in Germany refused to allow her to do so.

Desperate for love, Julie allegedly sought consolation in the arms of others. Finally, Tsar Alexander granted her permission to leave in 1801, even though her husband was now heir to the throne. Rootless in Europe, Julie gave birth to two―possibly three―illegitimate children, all of whom she was forced to give up for adoption. Despite entreaties from Constantine to return and provide an heir, she refused, eventually finding love with her own married physician.

At a time when many royal brides meekly submitted to disastrous marriages, Julie proved to be a woman ahead of her time, sacrificing her reputation and a life of luxury in exchange for the freedom to live as she wished. The Rebel Romanov is the inspiring tale of a bold woman who, until now, has been ignored by history.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Why on Earth does Rappaport need the figleaf of "allegedly" in the book description? A very minor figure in Russian history, and invisible outside it...this is barely non-fiction, there's so much reading between the lines...who's going to troll her for "disrespecting" this nonentity?

One big reason she's been ignored by history is she didn't make any. All she did was leave a husband she detested, run off and have adventures all across Europe, and do exactly nothing for anyone not herself. Pretty much the picture-perfect spoiled princess, sort of like "Sissi" only without the heir-bearing.

Why I liked it is it gave me a fascinating glance into a family that ought to be much netter studied: The Saxe-Coburg ducal dynasty, a branch of the Bavarian royals, the Wettins. Shake a royal family tree and a bunch of 'em will fall out. I mean, a branch of 'em is still on the throne of the United Kingdom and another of that of Belgium. Their close cousins used to be rulers of Portugal and Bulgaria. They were the mothers of Romanov tsars, and countless other royals, from the early 18th century onwards.

It's thrown into stark relief that, when reading this book, the long shadow of Napoleon and more generally the upheavals in France from 1789 forward have made a heavy screen against the study and awareness of the rest of Europe's eventful history at this time. Julie's peripatetic life, though little enough noted, did leave some personal traces. These are presented in their context so I got a good grounding in events seen from the not-Napoleon side. Dynastic marriages, border disputes resolved thereby, things about the power politics of the time I hadn't really been aware enough of to know I didn't know about them, all form this story's backdrop.

What this wasn't, however, was a spicy, entertaining, gossipy book about an interesting woman who had the principles to abandon a luxe life. That's what the title suggested I was going to get; it's a good, illuminating history of a time from an angle new to me. It's not juicy or gossipy. Much about this poor woman and her life was simply not worth risking the ire of Imperial Russia to preserve. I suspect this absence of source material is a calculated act by agents of the Romanovs, to disguise the extremely awful way this poor thing was treated by all and sundry in their court, and by her own family to disguise their sale of one of their own into what amounted to slavery (albeit gilded by trappings of wealth) to save their own hold on political power.

A survivor, this lady was; a rebel, not so much based on this story as told here.

THE REFORMATORY, death and reckoning in Jim Crow Florida...winner of the 2024 BRAM STOKER & WORLD FANTASY & SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS FOR BEST NOVEL

THE REFORMATORY
TANANARIVE DUE
Saga Press
$28.99 hardcover, available now

WINNER of the 2024 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel!

WINNER OF 2023'S BEST NOVEL—SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS!

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida

June 1950

Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.

The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: WINNER OF the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel (2023)

This is one long story. Long in words, long in facts, long! What it isn't is a dragging mess to read. Ghosts, abused boys, wretched families, the oppressive miasma of Florida's hideous climate...any one of these could've sent me on my way. Instead they all work as a gestalt of Horror, suffering, and terror that left me drained but made me as happy to know this story as an old white man who has never had to fear this kind of abuse and calculated cruelty can be at knowing, from the inside out, what the system I and mine have benefited from did while we were looking anywhere but there.

The single most awful part is that it's fictionalized, not fiction.

I just do not know why anyone would, based on skin color or other cosmetic or cultural factors, engineer a life designed to end quickly and prematurely for innocent victims. Othering, a long-standing weapon of mass destruction, is the cruelest and excuses the cruelest means of hurting those unloved. Why we keep burying our knowledge of its occurrence is perfectly clear after reading this story: Admitting that we tolerated this, knowing on some level that it was happening because these people vanished, but not how, not what horrifying acts occurred in our names, is acutely painful.

So is torture. So is the murder of your loved ones.

Suddenly the pain of reading about it isn't quite so bad, is it.

I hope this book becomes the classic anti-racist read of the twenty-first century. It has renewed urgency and relevance as the years go by. It seems white folks just can't stop being horrible to others.