Book
The Jewel of St Petersburg
First published 2010
St Petersburg, 1910. Valentina Ivanova belongs to the privileged world of late-imperial Russian society, admired for her beauty and her talent as a pianist. Her family's plans for a suitable marriage are threatened when she falls in love with Jens Friis, a Danish engineer whose work and outlook place him far outside the expectations of her aristocratic parents.
Political tension is spreading through the capital as the authority of the tsarist state is challenged by revolutionaries and the gulf between wealth and poverty becomes increasingly dangerous. Valentina's struggle for independence, her concern for her younger sister and the pressures of family duty unfold against a city moving towards upheaval. The novel provides the earlier history of the Ivanova family whose exile later shapes The Russian Concubine.
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