Escape of the Grand Duchess
By Susan Appleyard
By Susan Appleyard
Publication Date: 27th July 2025
Publisher: Ingenium Books Publishing Inc.
Page Length: 412
Genre: Biographical Historical Fiction
Escape of the Grand Duchess by Susan Appleyard is a gripping historical novel that shatters the notion that royalty is synonymous with privilege and ease. At its heart is Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the youngest sister of Tsar Nicholas II—a Romanov who defied a doomed destiny and survived.
Unlike her ill-fated brother and his family, Olga’s story is one of resilience, sacrifice, and daring escape. Trapped in a loveless marriage to a reckless gambler—who harbours secrets of his own—she finds hope in the arms of a dashing army lieutenant. But before she can claim her own happiness, she must first endure the brutal realities of World War I, where she serves as a nurse on the frontlines.
As the Russian Empire teeters on the brink of collapse, the infamous Siberian mystic Rasputin tightens his grip on the imperial court, setting the stage for revolution. With the Bolsheviks seizing power and the Romanovs marked for death, Olga faces an impossible choice: risk everything to stay or flee into the unknown with her true love and their children.
Rich in historical detail and driven by an unforgettable heroine, Escape of the Grand Duchess is a sweeping riches-to-rags tale of survival, love, and the strength it takes to forge a new life in the face of unimaginable upheaval.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I went into Escape of the Grand Duchess expecting a fairly traditional Romanov novel—lavish palaces, doomed royalty, a little romance, a little tragedy, and the inevitable shadow of revolution waiting in the distance.
It turned out to be far more personal than that.
Because while the collapse of imperial Russia forms the backdrop, the novel is much more interested in the emotional cost of living through it. Not the grand political version taught in history books, but the quieter reality of watching your world slowly become unrecognisable while trying to hold your family, your dignity, and yourself together.
At the centre of it all is Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, who very quickly emerges as far more than “the Tsar’s sister.” In fact, one of the best things about the novel is how completely it strips away the untouchable image of royalty.
Olga may live in palaces, but she has very little control over her own life.
Her marriage is unhappy from the beginning, built more around expectation than affection, and there’s a constant sense of emotional loneliness hanging over her story. She spends much of the novel trying to balance what is expected of her with what she actually wants, which turns out to be a far more dangerous thing than it should be.
Naturally, the moment she finds genuine love, history decides to intervene.
Rudely.
The relationship between Olga and the army lieutenant is handled surprisingly well because it never overwhelms the rest of the story. It grows quietly in the middle of chaos rather than existing apart from it. There’s tenderness there, but also uncertainty, because neither of them can pretend the world around them is stable enough to promise a future.
And honestly, that tension makes the romance feel more believable.
What I appreciated most was the way the novel handles the war and revolution. It doesn’t romanticise suffering, and it doesn’t treat royalty as somehow protected from reality. Olga working as a nurse during the war gives the story some of its strongest moments because it forces her directly into the human cost of everything happening around her.
The hospital scenes in particular stay with you. There’s exhaustion, fear, overcrowding, wounded soldiers, endless grief — and through all of it Olga is trying to keep functioning while the entire country begins falling apart outside the walls. Those sections make her feel less like a historical figure and more like an actual woman trying to survive circumstances far bigger than herself.
Meanwhile, Rasputin drifts through the novel like a walking bad decision.
Every appearance from him carries this uncomfortable sense that things are only going to get worse from here. The book captures that growing paranoia inside the imperial family very well, especially as Alexandra becomes more dependent on him and everyone else starts realising the monarchy is losing its grip.
What the novel does especially well is pacing the collapse of Russia itself. Nothing happens all at once. Instead, there’s a gradual tightening of tension—rumours, shortages, political unrest, fear, people disappearing, loyalties shifting. The sense of inevitability becomes heavier with every chapter.
Even knowing the historical outcome, I still found myself hoping Olga might somehow outrun it.
By the final part of the novel, the story becomes less about royalty altogether and more about survival. About what people carry with them when everything familiar has been stripped away. About choosing love and family even when the future is uncertain and safety no longer exists.
I finished the book feeling strangely emotional for someone I previously only knew as a minor historical figure in the Romanov story. Susan Appleyard manages to make Olga feel real in all the ways that matter—flawed, frightened, resilient, loving, and painfully aware that history is closing in around her.
It’s immersive, emotional, and far more human than I expected it to be.
Susan Appleyard
Susan was born in England, which is where she learned to love English history, and now lives in Canada in the summer. In winter she and her husband flee the cold for their second home in Mexico. Susan divides her time between writing and her hobby, oil painting, although writing will always be her first love. She was fortunate in having had two books published traditionally. Since joining the ebook crowd, she has published nine books, some of which have won various awards.
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