Customer Reviews

Anna (Kirov Saga, Part 1)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I loved this book! I found it two years ago on an obscure back shelf at the local library during the summer, when I was looking for a good book to read. I brought it home after reading the dust jacket, and the first time I read it I was completely engrossed. I couldn't put it down and read the whole 500-something page book in one sitting. I have since gone on to read the other two books in the Kirov Trilogy, but I would have to say that Anna is by far my favorite. For me Cynthia Harrod-Eagles does a wonderful job at bringing the characters to life, weaving their personal struggles with the historical events of the time. As much as I love this book, I would never call Anna a literary masterpiece. Anna is the type of book that you read for pleasure, for the experience that the story gives you, and I must say that the experience is most definitely pleasurable.

This book really captures the feel of early 19th century Russia in a way that no other author I've encountered has managed to do. It's not an original plot - governess falls in love with her aristocratic employer - but the author's treatment of Russia during the Napoleonic era rings true and evocative. The other 2 titles in the Kirov saga (Fleur, Emily) are also worth reading but not as gripping as this one.

This book was moving and interesting, with a cast of rich, well drawn characters that kept me involved in the story. It is the story of passionate, vital people who are caught in the sweep of history and must either endure it or rise above it. If Gone With the Wind had been set in Russia, this would have been it. I truly enjoyed it.

Anna is the first in a trilogy commonly referred to as The Kirov Saga and is the story of Anne Peters, an Englishwoman forced by circumstances after her father's death to take employment as a governess. Her latest position takes her to Paris in 1803, where she meets Count Nikolai Kirov, a Russian diplomat who was a friend of her father. Her employers take umbrage at this friendship and she leaves their employ and finds herself stranded in Paris, that is until Nikolai offers her a position in Russia as governess to his children in St. Petersburg. Once there, Anne (now called Anna Petrovna), settles in and comes to love the children, but she also secretly loves the very much married Nikolai - and could it be that he loves her as well?

Unable to keep her passion for Nikolai hidden, Anne finally makes a break from the Kirovs and begins a new life in Moscow, but she soon finds that great wealth doesn't always buy happiness. Nikolai eventually returns from Paris and returns to Anna's life, although Napoleon's invasion of Russia definitely throws a kink into any happiness our pair of lovers might hope to find...

This is one of those books that is too complicated to to put into summary and you don't want me to spoil it for you anyway. Anne's story takes her from St. Petersburg, to a nail-biting search for a lost child high in the Caucasus Mountains (oh, that Cossack prince of hers), to Napoleon's invasions of Moscow ending with a harrowing view of the French army's retreat from Russia as they search for Nikolai's run-away daughter.

I really enjoyed how the author set her scenes, everything came to life and I felt like I was in another century (which is exactly where I want a book to take me to). Since Anne is a governess much of the first half of the book involves her day-to-day life and interactions with the Kirovs and their children, so if you need a heroine dodging silver bullets and leaping tall buildings with a single bound this might not be the book for you, but if you like your sagas big and fat with a heavy dose of soap opera I'd definitely consider giving this one a whirl. The final two books in the trilogy are Fleur and Emily and I've already placed my hold at the library for book #2. 4/5 stars.