'Will I never see you again either?' I asked, feeling as though I was about to jump off a high mountain peak and hope to land without hurting myself. That's how impossible everything seemed at that moment, no matter what I did.

'Perhaps we will meet again,' Sasha said, softening his voice. 'But you must see that it does not matter. You have so much ahead of you. It's your choice now. Choose the future! Choose life!'

For Anastasia Romanov, life as the privileged daughter of Russia's last tsar is about to be torn apart by the bloodshed of revolution. Ousted from the imperial palace when the Bolsheviks seize control of the government, Anastasia and her family are exiled to Siberia. But even while the rebels debate the family's future with agonizing slowness and the threat to their lives grows more menacing, romance quietly blooms between Anastasia and Sasha, a sympathetic young guard she has known since childhood. But will the strength of their love be enough to save Anastasia from a violent death?

Inspired by the mysteries that have long surrounded the last days of the Romanov family, Susanne Dunlap's new novel is a haunting vision of the life - and love story - of Russia's last princess.