One hundred years old, with a sharp memory for every jewel she owned and every conquest she made, Mathilde Kschessinska - prima ballerina assoluta of the long-vanished Russian Imperial Ballet - sits down to write her memoirs.

And what a life it has been. The greatest dancer of the age, her scything technique caught the eye - and heart - of one Nikolai Romanov when she was only seventeen years old. When Nikolai ascended the throne as czar and was forced to give up his mistress, she turned her gaze on his cousins, the grand dukes; despite betraying each man with the other, her loyalty to Niki never wavered. As the last czar presided over a fatally crumbling empire, her devotion to the imperial family was tested in ways she could never have foreseen.

In Adrienne Sharp's richly imagined novel, we see the seething beginnings of revolution and the blind giddiness of a doomed court. Based on fact, The True Memoirs of Little K is historical fiction as it's meant to be written: passionately eventful and alive with emotions that resonate today. It is a magnificent entertainment.