Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten is a historic novel of female empowerment that feels shockingly modern. Tsarina gives off a different historic novel feeling but it’s a new fun feeling because of how interesting it was and how much this novel sucked me into the story quickly.

Tsarina is a novel of the history of a lady by the name Catherine who happens to be the second wife of Peter the Great. St. Petersburg 1725. In the novel Peter the Great dies leaving nobody to hold his throne to his empire. Catherine and men he trusted the most tried to help the empire from falling to garbage and failing. Catherine is passionate and strong. Born into poverty Catherine worked her way into making Tsar (Peter) fall for her as a way to get away from her life. Catherine ends up falling in love with her new life of having wealth, privilege and almost everything that she’s ever dreamed of having.   

Cathrine has spent her life battling to survive. But she grasped herself out of her own poverty and became one of the most powerful women of Russia. She rules his empire with strong oaths, power, her own thoughts and ideas of what she needs to accomplish as she rules. Catherine is thrilled of her vision to transform the traditional Russian empire into a more modern empire. There are loads of women who want to take Catherines place. The rest of the novel is full of surprises filled with her fighting and thriving in order to hold her power.

Tsarina is written with rich detail that keeps the reader content. There’s so much detail and compassion into the text brings so many visual pictures through your mind while you read. Through the novel Ellen Alpsten talks briefly about some hard subjects but she deals with these subjects through the use of reality through the time period the book is set in. Tsarina is a novel perfect for people who love to read historical fiction and for those who love a mature and well written book. Ellen Alpsten has precisely detailed a lot of aspects in the book that perfectly mix that with her incredible knowledge of Russian History and you have an outstanding book. All of the detail put together is what made this book so amazing to read.

Throughout the book I had so many questions of what was to come next and every page and every chapter didn’t disappoint at all. Putting this book away was so hard and finishing it was even harder. I just wanted to keep reading and reading. I would highly recommend Tsarina to anyone looking for a book that is mature and thrilling. It’s an amazing well paced amazingly written book that will keep you entertained throughout the whole thing.