Lost Roses

Usually a book is so good you cannot put it down.  This time I was having a hard time picking it up.  I really was enjoying the writing and most of the plot line, but whenever we read about Varinka and her story line it was so disturbing that I wanted to return the book to the library unfinished.

I did finish the book though and really enjoyed most of it.  This is a novel starts in 1914 and is about the lead up to World War One.  We follow the lives of Eliza Ferriday, who lives with her daughter, Caroline and her mother in New York.  They are members of  the upper class and have an apartment in the city, a home on Long Island and her husband has just purchased a small farm with a house in Connecticut.

Eliza goes to visit her close friend, Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanov family, royalty in Russia.  they had met years before as students in Paris and she is excited to visit her in St. Petersburg.

But as Austria declares war on Serbia and Russia's imperial dynasty begins to crumble, Eliza sails back to America, promising to help Sofya and her family.  Danger moves quickly through Europe and the entire continent is engulfed in war.  Russian royalty are threatened by the working class and many are killed.

Vacrinka is a member of the working class and lives with her mother under very poor conditions.  She is emboldened to Taras  who is taking advantage of the her and the times they are living through.  He rises in the army of the people's resistance and moves up in rank as a leader killing the Russian leadership and taking over Streshnayvas country residence.  Vacinka has brought intense danger into the family's life.

Meanwhile in America Eliza is helping to settle Russian women and children who have managed to escape and are seeking refuge.  She finds them jobs and safe places to live.  She also starts a fundraising campaign to send money to Paris to help Russian refugees there.  She asks everyone she meets if they know her friend Sofya.  Eventually after the war ends in 1919 the war is over and Eliza travels to Paris to look for her friend and for the man she shamed into enlisting.

All in all the book is fascinating and very uplifting in the end, but along the way it was disturbing and I am not sure some of the detail was necessary.