Winter, 1916. In St Petersburg, snow is falling in a country on the brink of revolution. Beautiful and headstrong, Sashenka Zeitlin is just sixteen. As her mother parties with Rasputin and her dissolute friends, Sashenka slips into the frozen night to play her role in a dangerous game of conspiracy and seduction. Twenty years on, Sashenka has a powerful husband and two children. Around her people are disappearing but her own family is safe. But she's about to embark on a forbidden love affair which will have devastating consequences. Sashenka's story lies hidden for half a century, until a young historian goes deep into Stalin's private archives and uncovers a heart-breaking story of passion and betrayal, savage cruelty and unexpected heroism - and one woman forced to make an unbearable choice.
Reviews
'This completely addictive story offers an authoritative insight into Stalin's USSR and, in its huge characters and epic amibition, carries echoes of Tolstoy himself' DAILY MAIL
'To write a good historical novel you have to recreate that world, both physically and intellectually - and there must be a sense that history is driving the plot forwards. Montefiore succeeds on all counts' EVENING STANDARD
'Intricate, fast moving...so powerfully and persuasively set out that, by the time I finally put the book down, long after midnight, I was in tears' THE TIMES
A furiously readable novel - it's hard to put SASHENKA down. SASHENKA is a brilliantly-plotted novel which brings home with unique intimacy the joys and hopes of Russian families, the Revolution, the horror of the Thirties - and a new generation's penetration of KGB files.... Montefiore has a scholar's knowledge of Russian history but he lets his knowledge serve the tale and become part of the texture. The glory and tragedy of Sashenka's story remains long after the last page is read. Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List
'a compelling novel of passions and secrets, politics and lies, love and betrayal, savagery and survival' SAGA
Author Biography
Simon Montefiore's ancestors escaped from the Tsarist Empire at the turn of the century, and sparked his lifelong interest in Russia. As a correspondent in the early 1990s, he covered the wars and turbulence surrounding the fall of the Soviet Union. As a historian, he has spent the last ten years researching the Russian archives. The personal stories he found there helped inspire this novel. Born in 1965, Simon Montefiore lives in London with his wife, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children.
