The Winter Palace

Eva Stachniak's novel "The Winter Palace" is filled with the intrigue and machinations that brought Catherine the Great to the throne of Russia.

Barbara is a young woman when her bookbinding father dies.  He had repaired a book for the Empress when she was a young woman.  He asked the Empress to look after his daughter should anything happen to him.  When he died, Barbara was left an orphan, and was now known in Russian as Varvara was taken into the royal household to work.  There she came under the influence of the Chancellor who taught her to spy, "to be his tongue". 

Shortly afterwards another young woman, Sophie came to the Russian court.  Sophie was to become the bride of Peter who is next in line to the throne.  Sophie and Varvara become friends, too close for the Empress' pleasure, so Varvara is forced to marry a Russian soldier.  However, Varvara manages to still stay in the good graces of the Empress and works to help Sophie, who upon marrying the heir to the throne becomes known as Catherine.  The Empress expects Sophie to become pregnant as soon as possible.  When it doesn't happen, Catherine is shunned.

As the story draws to a conclusion we discover how Catherine came to become the Empress of Russia.  Stachniak is working on the sequel to this novel that tells the story of Catherine as Empress.  I look forward to reading it.