It was fascinating to read the daily correspondence of an actual princess/czarina, especially from Tatiana, who seems to be responsible, mothering, caring, grateful, and frequently asks after the welfare of others. Though her writing is interspersed with other documents and diaries of other dignitaries, you get the sense of her day to day appointments, small mercies and moments of great happiness, going to theatre, schooling, playtime, entertaining visitors and members of the military, illnesses, boating excursions, religious services, and her patients while working with the International Red Cross.

GoodReads, Kristine Fisher

Recommend to anyone interested in the daughters of Nicholas II. This book gave insight into their private life like no biography can, in the words of the second daughter of the last Tsar of Russia, writing during WW1 and the Russian Revolution.

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GoodReads, Janine

These books are such a blessing to anyone with serious interest in everyday life of the last Romanovs!

GoodReads, Ally Kumari

A full translation with contextual footnotes to ease understanding. This book gives a more complete picture of day-to-day life for a Romanov Grand Duchess in the last years of Imperial Russia. As it’s a translation of a diary it’s hard to find much else to say. I think it is a useful document for those studying the era, and helpfully annotated.

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Rosemarie Cawkwell, Blogger

This book is a translation of diaries kept by Tatiana Romanov, the second child of Nicholas II and Alexandra. The entries begin on 1 January 1913 (when she was fifteen) and continue (with a few gaps) until October 1916 (when her father abdicated). Letters to and from Tatiana have also been included, some of which were copied into her diary, and which add coverage until May 1918. (The family was executed in July 1918.)

What adds extraordinary value to this translation is that extensive footnotes have been provided, explaining who most of the people are who are mentioned, and adding brief historical, cultural and religious notes.

The editors have also inserted occasional text from other memoirs, allowing the reader to see Tatiana from another perspective and to gain additional background information... Tatiana comes across as a very serious young woman who is conscious of her royal duties, with strong feelings toward her family members. I was amazed to see her transition, seemingly effortlessly, into her wartime role as nurse. The murder of such an innocent, virtuous young lady at the hands of the Bolsheviks is reprehensible.

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The Miniatures Page

Helen and Nicholas’s book goes a long way to filling in a huge nuber of gaps in our knowledge of the last days of the Romanov Empire before it was utterly destroyed by the Russian revolution of 1917. An intimate and fascinating insight into the lives of the Russian royal family as seen through the eyes of Tatiana Romanov. Superb.

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Books Monthly

The gallery of photos is a wonderful, interesting and truly crushing addition to the book. Showing the smiling happy duchesses and their family – all unaware of the horrible and awful fate that awaits them. It was a deep blow to put faces to the names and be hit with the deep sense of true loss and pain for what happened to Tatiana and her family. It’s very easy with history to lose touch with the fact that these people lived and breathed and had true and personal feelings. As an historian I find myself occasionally looking past the humanity of the figures I’m studying and think of them as characters rather than people… it’s good to be reminded through sources like this that that isn’t the case and these people lived and breathed, laughed and cried as we do.

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History in Petticoats, Kendal Elizabeth Parker