Publication Date: 27th July 2025
Publisher: Ingenium Books Publishing Inc.
Page Length: 412
Genre: Biographical Historical Fiction
Escape of the Grand Duchess by Susan Appleyard is a gripping historical novel that shatters the notion that royalty is synonymous with privilege and ease. At its heart is Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the youngest sister of Tsar Nicholas II—a Romanov who defied a doomed destiny and survived.
Unlike her ill-fated brother and his family, Olga’s story is one of resilience, sacrifice, and daring escape. Trapped in a loveless marriage to a reckless gambler—who harbours secrets of his own—she finds hope in the arms of a dashing army lieutenant. But before she can claim her own happiness, she must first endure the brutal realities of World War I, where she serves as a nurse on the frontlines.
As the Russian Empire teeters on the brink of collapse, the infamous Siberian mystic Rasputin tightens his grip on the imperial court, setting the stage for revolution. With the Bolsheviks seizing power and the Romanovs marked for death, Olga faces an impossible choice: risk everything to stay or flee into the unknown with her true love and their children.
Rich in historical detail and driven by an unforgettable heroine, Escape of the Grand Duchess is a sweeping riches-to-rags tale of survival, love, and the strength it takes to forge a new life in the face of unimaginable upheaval.
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There’s a moment in Escape of the Grand Duchess where you suddenly stop thinking of the Romanovs as “history” and start thinking of them simply as a family watching the world fall apart around them. That’s what this book does so brilliantly. It strips away the mythology and gives you people — flawed, frightened, loving, stubborn people — trapped inside events far bigger than themselves.
I thought Susan Appleyard’s portrayal of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was superb. Olga isn’t written as some untouchable tragic princess. She’s practical, sharp-tongued at times, deeply emotional at others, and far more aware than many around her of how dangerous the political situation is becoming. Her voice carries the whole novel effortlessly.
The early part of the book is fascinating for its depiction of court life and the suffocating expectations placed upon royal women, particularly Olga’s disastrous marriage to Prince Peter of Oldenburg. The loneliness of that arrangement hangs over much of the novel, which makes her later relationship with Nikolai Kulikovsky feel all the more sincere and hard-won. Their scenes together brought genuine warmth to an increasingly dark story.
What I found especially compelling was the portrayal of the growing divide within the imperial family itself. Olga’s devotion to Nicholas II is unwavering, but there’s a painful undercurrent throughout because she can see his weaknesses so clearly. He’s portrayed as kind and well-meaning, but hopelessly unequipped for the catastrophe unfolding around him. Meanwhile, Alexandra Feodorovna becomes more isolated with every chapter. The novel captures that sense of a woman retreating further inward, trusting fewer and fewer people until only Rasputin remains.
And Rasputin himself is one of the most unsettling parts of the book. Not because he’s written as some theatrical villain, but because the atmosphere surrounding him feels so believable — the whispers, the desperation, the blind faith, the resentment building in every room he enters. You can almost feel the empire rotting from within.
The final third of the novel is genuinely moving. The uncertainty surrounding the fate of the imperial family, the rumours filtering through, the dawning horror as the truth becomes unavoidable — those chapters stayed with me long after I’d finished reading. Olga’s grief over her brothers feels painfully intimate, especially because she has so little time to process one loss before another arrives.
What makes this novel special is that it never becomes overwhelmed by the history. The politics matter, the revolution matters, but at its heart this is a story about survival, loyalty, exile, and holding onto love when everything familiar has been destroyed.
Richly atmospheric, deeply humane and impossible to put down. This deserves to be widely read by anyone who loves historical fiction at its very best.
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Susan Appleyard
Susan was born in England, which is where she learned to love English history, and now lives in Canada in the summer. In winter she and her husband flee the cold for their second home in Mexico. Susan divides her time between writing and her hobby, oil painting, although writing will always be her first love. She was fortunate in having had two books published traditionally. Since joining the ebook crowd, she has published nine books, some of which have won various awards.
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