I Was Anastasia

  I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon

     I am assuming here that we all know who Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov was.  Her father, the last Czar of Russia, along with her entire family were executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

A couple of years later a young woman is pulled unconscious from a canal in Berlin.  She is covered in scars and won’t tell who she is but what is sure is that she looks remarkably like the deceased Grand Duchess.  Eventually, she reveals that she is Anastasia Romanov. 

     And now the intrigue begins.  The thought that someone in the family survived the slaughter seems unbelievable.  The grave is opened.  The body count is not correct. Could this be the Grand Duchess? If so, aunts, uncles and cousins spread out through Europe’s royal families are not happy and do their best to discredit this person they are calling Anna Anderson.  They are sure that she is just hoping to inherit her family’s wealth.  If Anna/Anastasia inherits, then they, of course, would not. The fortune is enough to fight for.  And for fifty years and spanning half the world, the family tries to discredit her.

     Going back and forth through two narratives, the last days of the Romanov family during their imprisonment and Anna/Anastasia’s time since then tells the whole story of what was and could have been Anna/Anastasia’s story. Historically, we know what happened to the Romanovs but proving whether Anastasia indeed did survive puts a dramatic, mysterious twist on this story.  I kept going until the very last word in this book because I kept wondering if there was something I didn’t remember about the mystery of this Anna/Anastasia and couldn’t wait to see how the author settled the story.  You have to do the same.  I won’t tell.