For over a decade, young Danina Petroskova has known no life but that of the ballet and her mentor Madame Markova. When a deathly illness steals her from the stage, the young dancer is inconsolable, and, desperate to speed her recovery, Madame Markova agrees to hand Danina over to the talented Dr. Nikolai Obrajensky for treatment. Convalescing with the Romanovs at the Tsarskoe Selo palace, Danina learns to live in and love the world beyond the ballet. And while grateful for Nikolai's companionship, she is startled by the intense emotions growing inside her for the married doctor. Drawn to Danina, Nikolai cannot ignore the passion between them either, and the strength of their love quickly overpowers their resistance. Soon Madame Markova and Nikolai's wife remind them of their previous obligations, and as the Revolution hovers on the horizon, the two must make a decision that will change their lives forever.
As if a romance set in the twilight years of czarist Russia doesn't have enough intrinsic pathos, Danielle Steel takes great care to give her hero and heroine the bittersweet combination of incomparable virtue and external duties. When the young prima ballerina and the married doctor meet, they are drawn to the corresponding sense of integrity and duty in each other. However, when love and duty conflict, the struggle is never easy.
Maestro Steel knows where the heartstrings are, and she plays them with her reliable talents. While students of history may cringe at the simplified approach to the historical period, readers just looking for a good time have found it. With the tough-but-loving mother figure, the ill-but-lovable Prince Alexander, the borrowed ball gowns, and the emotional grand jeté, this book has everything a TV movie needs except a small, cuddly pet. Put your feet up, set aside your spoilsport logic, and enjoy this novel for what it is: a classic romance.--Nancy R.E. O'Brien
GREAT READ!! I absolutely loved this book. I have read most of Danielle Steel's books and I always enjoy them but this is by far one of the best she has written so far.
It is a story of love found and fought for during a very difficult historical period in Russia. I laughed with Danina, smiled with each character, felt the excitement, and cried through each tragedy as if I was there. It brought to my mind so many thoughts of my own grandparents and others that have come before. It was riveting!
Written by Danielle Steele at age 12? Surely this book wasn't written by an adult??? Horrible waste of time, waste of money, and waste of a supposedly talented writer!This Book Stayed with Me This was my fourth or fifth Danielle Steel book to read and I think I loved this book much more than the rest. This story grabbed me and wouldn't let go. It stayed in my mind for 3 days straight after I first read it. The characters and their love story was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever read. He was married to an unloving wife which made him miserable and she was a young girl who didn't know what love was...until they met. I give this book 5 stars because it kept me interested and wanting more when I finsihed it. It isn't one of Danielle Steel's longer books, but it has a very compacted and dramatic story. When you start the book, it is told from the point of view of a character who is not named, but she is the pivitol beginning and ending of this story. It is the middle of the book that focuses on the two main characters who make up the love story.
