The story of the surviving Russian Imperial Family as they head into a life of exile aboard the HMS Marlborough.

A masterpiece of comic understatement * The Times *
Welch writes with a limpid style and a cool intelligence * Sunday Telegraph *
I was hooked from page one - this is cumulatively moving - a real triumph of sympathy
The kind of history that makes fiction look pallid and pointless. * Evening Standard *
A gripping account of the Romanovs choppy passage into exile. Welch s detective work has produced a book that is wonderfully witty and sad by turns. * Mail on Sunday *
The book's readability and telling use of detail are splendid. * Spectator *
a splendidly exotic story ... Frances Welsh does it grippingly here, with lots of details I hadn't come across before. I loved to read of the goods they brought with them, including rolled-up Rembrandt paintings, Faberge eggs and other treasures of the sort. What a pilgrimage, to be sure. * Sunday Telegraph *
A fascinating, poignant portrait of a bizarre collection of people caught up in the chaos of their exodus * Irish Times *
The book s readability and telling use of detail are splendid. * Spectator *
An engrossing account of the flight of the surviving Romanovs after the 1917 Revolution. * Sunday Express *

Frances Welch is author of The Romanov & Mr Gibbes (Short Books, 2003) and A Romanov Fantasy: Life at the Court of Anna Anderson (Short Books, 2007) She is married to the writer Craig Brown, and has two children. She lives in Aldeburgh, Suffolk.