The Last Tiara

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Content Rating: 16+ Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, Mystery Published: February 2, 2021, by Blue Box Press The Last Tiara, written by M. J. Rose, is a beautiful story that weaves the touching relationship between mother and daughter while intertwining 1915 Russia and 1948 America. The Last Tiara is expertly research and well written. Ms. Rose writes this book with sharp attention to historical detail but also laced with romance and mystery. Isabelle Moon is a young architect in post-WW2. She is living and working in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where she is transforming the secrete cities tasked with making the first nuclear bomb back into livable cities. On December 9, Isabelle gets a frantic phone call from her aunt informing her that her mother was hit by a car and has died. Isabelle then rushes home to New York to morn her mother. When she returns to her job, she begins to feel lost. When an opening becomes available in New York, Isabelle jumps at the opportunity. She moves back into the apartment she shared with her mother. While renovating their shared apartment, she stumbles upon a tiara stripped of all its gemstones. This begins her journey of discovering what her mother’s life was like during the fall of the Romanov’s rule. This story alternates between mother and daughter and between their respective times. I have always been obsessed with all things Romanov, so that part was a real treat for me. I also loved that the author wrote with wonderfully rich historical detail. Although this didn’t necessarily add to the plot, I feel that it added to the enjoyment of the whole book, and I learned a bit of history. I thought the mystery element was well developed and thought out, and it did keep me guessing throughout the whole book. I would have liked to see the author develop the two main characters a bit more. But overall, The Last Tiara is a well-written book that I enjoyed and would recommend it. ** I kindly received The Last Tiara by way of Net Galley, Blue Box Press, and M.J. Rose. I was not contacted, asked, or required to leave a review. I received no compensation, financial or otherwise. I have voluntarily read this book, and this review is my honest opinion. **

Two young women who never really had a chance to know one another. The mother escaped Russia for America after the Revolution, and the daughter an architect just after the second World War and working in NYC. That which ties them together after all these years is a Romanov tiara which disappeared and was sold for its component jewels. The imagery is both breathtaking and heartbreaking, the characters are engaging as is their story. As a history geek with ancestors from the general area, I was fascinated and drawn in from beginning to end. Excellent read! I requested and received a free temporary ebook copy from Blue Box Press/AuthorBuzz via NetGalley.

I received a free electronic ARC of this novel from Netgalley, M. J. Rose, and BlueBoxPress. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. M. J. Rose writes a tight, compelling historical and this book is up to the mark, an interesting and much deeper look into the women of the Romanovs as the revolution in Russia removed the family from power. We see this take from two different perspectives, crossing time. This spread across stories and time is handled very well. The breaks from place-to-place, time to time, are handled very cleanly and you are never in doubt of where you are or when. Sofiya Petrovich introduces us to the Russian royals as she brings us their story from Petrograd (St. Petersburg) as the Winter Palace becomes a medical hospital for the war-wounded of the Russian Revolution and WWI in the summer of 1915. The tsarina and her daughters work at the hospital as did their dear friend Sofiya. At the end of 1921 with a baby coming, her lover Carpathian arrested, shipped to Siberia, and reported dead, with all of her friends and family disappeared, Sofiya immigrates to New York City with a small case of personal items and a tiara gifted to her by her dearest friend Princess Olga, made especially for the princess by the St. Petersburg House of Faberge for her 14th birthday. Sofiya, who changed her name to Sofia Moon at Ellis Island, gives us New York City in the years between the Wars. And her daughter, Isobelle, joins the tale, bringing us into World War II in NYC. Sofia would never speak of the old world to her daughter, and after her death, Isobelle finds herself alone and needing to understand her mother's life - and see her own in perspective. She needs to know about her father, her extended family, the life Sofiya left behind in 1922, in order to figure out who she herself is, what she needs from life, where she is going in this world today. And then while stripping her mother's very pink bedroom for redecoration she finds the silver frame of the tiara and receipts for the missing stones hidden in a nitch between boards and wallpapered over. The receipts only add to the mystery of her mother's past. They take her to Tiffany's showroom and fully immerse her in yet another mystery... Altogether, an engrossing tale that keeps you reading far into the night.