I can't explain why I'm so fascinated by the Romanovs. I feel like a large part of it is down, simply, to the fact that it was an argument between family members that overtook the world and killed millions of innocent people. That kind of wholesale slaughter is just too much for me to get my head around.

Fascinating read. Rappaport is definitely a premier historian on the Romanovs as seen in this three book series ending with The Race to Save the Romanovs. I've been intrigued by the fall of the last tsar family since I first learned about them in my high school European History class, and yet I knew little to none of what was in this book. Highly recommend.

Once again Helen Rappaport renders a thoroughly researched examination of the Romanovs, but this time she deals exclusively with the machinations of the international diplomatic community on one hand, and the monarchists on the other, to rescue the Romanovs from the Bolsheviks. Since the kings and queens of Europe were in the same family tree, there were familial ties to the Romanovs all across Europe.. Unfortunately, World War I combined with the fear of their own monarchy being toppled prevented any of the royal relatives from sending help. Telegrams and letters were exchanged between the ambassadors and foreign offices, throughout the Romanov captivity, but the ramifications of offering their countries as a residence was thought to be a dangerous path. The rescue of the younger Romanovs was also considered, but it did not come to fruition. The Monarchists within and outside Russia were also obsessed with various rescue plans, but they operated in the realm of disorganization, and were never productive. Rappaport provides a wealth of information on all the possible routes, personalities, and myths involved in any possible rescue , but in the end, all of them fell short on feasibility.
In other titles Rappaport has offered personal histories of the family, and she always relied on research and primary resources. This is no different. Many of the letters or notes she discusses are new since they have languished unnoticed for years. Wonderful book for anyone interested in the Romanovs.

Up until reading The Race to Save the Romanovs and one other newly written book I have had no knowledge of the killing of the Romanovs. It was not covered during my school years, nor was I ever drawn into discussions of Russia other than watching their wonderful gymnasts during the Olympics. This book was an eye opener and actually made be feel like I had been living blindly to previous world events. Helen Rappaport's The Race to Save the Romanovs was well written, easy to comprehend and made me wish to learn more. Full Disclosure: I was allowed to read a copy of this book for free as a member of NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review. The opinions I have expressed are my own and I was not influenced to give a positive review.

I loved Helen Rappaport's novel, The Romanov Sisters. Therefore, I knew that Mrs. Rappaport was the expert on the Romanovs, and I highly anticipated this history book. Mrs. Rappaport goes into detail about the quest to save the Romanovs. There were many facts that I did not know. It was really an emotional read and made me wonder what would have happened had the Romanovs been saved. Overall, there were many attempts and some of them could have succeeded, but they were too late. This was a splendid read, and it is a must read for those that are interested in the Romanovs.

I enjoyed reading "the rest of the story" so far as the Romanovs were concerned. It is a shame that the royal family couldn't be saved, but this book sets out how the situation was far more complex than it may appear from our current vantage point. I think that anyone interested in history (especially WWI and the Romanovs) will enjoy this book.

The tale of the Romanov's and their sad demise is one that has been debated for years. What happened? What went wrong, and what could have been done to save them?

Helen Rappaport does a fantastic job in going through the backstory of the Romanov's, the elite of royalty in Europe, and the many people who could have helped the Romanov family escape before it was too late.

From the glittering beginning to the grisly end, Helen Rappaport brings the story of the Romanov family into clear focus and gives us all the details which brought this powerful dynasty to a sad ending.

GREAT READ! I absolutely loved this book! There is so much more than I want to say about this book, but my thoughts are so jumbled right now. I will be adding this book to my blog, and have more clear and concise thoughts there.

There have been a lot of theories proposed over the years about what happened to the Romanovs and why, but I feel like this is the first book that really explores everything that happened leading up to their unfortunate demise. The sheer amount of painstaking research that went into this book is astounding and makes you feel like you can trust the author to report the facts to you.

I found myself fascinated by this book from the first few pages until the last. Helen Rappaport knows her subject inside and out and leaves nothing out of her exhaustive search for the truth. If you have read other books about this family and come away with more questions than answers, you would be well served by reading this book instead.

one of the main things I liked about this book, was that the author really gave you a sense of who the members of this family were, as human beings, not just as overly-publicised royalty. You get the chance to see how events developed and hear the parts of the story that are usually just glossed over or entirely left out. The author did a great job piecing together the evidence and coming up with plausible bridges for the information that has been lost.

I thought this was an informative, interesting and worthwhile read and encourage others to give it a try.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

Helen Rappaport explores new documented sources 100 years after the massacre of the Romanov family to try to answer the question, why did no one try to save the family during their imprisonment? She has written several well-researched books on the Romanovs and what happened to them, this being the final exhaustive book on the subject. I learned a lot and found it very interesting, although also quite detailed, so I could only read a bit at a time to let it all soak in.

The Race to Save the Romanovs is a fascinating read. I learned so much more new information about how other European were debating about trying to save this royal family. It is so sad how it all ended. Most definitely a must read for those who are interested in the Last Czar and his family.
5 stars.

Helen Rappaport is one of my favorite historians, thanks to her ability to take any historical narrative and make it as delectable as a thriller. When I first heard that this would be her next book, I was intrigued. While I will admit that I have never put much thought into what happened to the outside world once the Romanov family was placed in captivity, I could see that this book would probably offer plenty of action, intrigue and of course four very pretty damsels in distress. I was not disappointed.

Rappaport let me on an emotional roller coaster as she discussed all the different plots, from the silly to the serious, that were put forward to save the deposed Tsar and his family. Each mission is thoughtfully detailed, with clear pros and cons and all important facts considered, without being dry or repetitive. In fact, I often got lost in this book to the point where I found myself hoping that maybe, just maybe, one of these plots would succeed, even though I knew very well how this story was going to end.

What was different in this book in comparison to all the others, she framed the narrative with her own mission to complete her research of this story. Historians are often un-sung heroes, digging into piles of evidence that might or might not be important or travelling across the world to find the answer to a question that has been hidden for centuries. I loved having the opportunity to come along on this adventure and see the work that went into putting this book in my hands.

Of all the stories, I found I most enjoyed hearing about the reactions of other royal families in Europe to the events occurring in Russia. Rappaport dissects not only the story of the oft-blamed King George V, but places blame on some other family members who could have done something to help their relatives. There were also some family members who hadn’t been recognized before, that tried everything they could to get the Romanovs out of Russia, even when their own heads of the family were unable or unwilling. I gained a more well-rounded explanation the complexities that often limited all of their abilities. But there were definitely some tidbits that made these royal families, with their own dramas and biases, sound much more like any other family with some relations they may not necessarily have liked.

I also enjoyed some of the more “hare-brained” schemes included. Usually dreamed up by well-meaning but not necessarily secretive Russian citizens loyal to the Tsar, these stories served to add some light, contrasting the un-avoidably gloomier parts of the book. Not only was it amusing to imagine their grand exploits (especially when the personalities of the Romanovs themselves probably would have caused them to fail anyway), but I couldn’t help but wish one of them could have succeeded. Mostly because it would have made a great movie!

When I met Rappaport at a signing a year ago, she told me that this was probably her last book on the Romanov family. If this is truly the last one, I think it is a great one to finish on.

What a great read! Easy enough to say now that “someone” should have saved the Romanovs, but Helen Rappaport, with her meticulous and exhaustive research, explores how indeed many people, including the crowned head of Europe, came up with plans and stratagems and machinations to do just that but how all these ideas were pretty much doomed from the start. And would the Tsar have agreed to leave Russia anyway? A fascinating and compelling examination of those terrible last days of the Romanovs.

While interesting enough, the real value in this book comes from the new primary source material it provides both in full and in summary. It does a good job of explaining why it is not King George of England who is to blame for the Imperial Faily's deaths, but that their fate was sealed by unlucky circumstance and by the Revolutionaries almost from the beginning.

That's great. The book, however, takes a scattershot approach without a clear line of argument to follow, with lots of items quoted in full and interruptions by the author about her research.

It's fine as source material for other books, but not as a book for the general reader.

This book was good. It is very well written and well researched. I was hooked from the very beginning .

I am very interested in this subject matter. I have read multiple books and articles about the events of the Romanov family. I was disappointed in this book. It jumps around date wise and places/people. Twenty percent of the book is footnotes which you can't flip to with a digital book. I wish they had been put in the header area so you would know what the number refers to. The book does cover information that I have never heard of before so that was great. If you are going to read this book, get an actual book.

The author seems to be very interested and educated on the subject of Russian history. I liked that they know the audience expectations for a book like this due to their public appearances and can therefore write to suit those questions. The story of the Romanov family is tragic and today we do tend to simplify the issue of how they could have survived and who would have taken them in. We do also tend to ignore the personal failings of the people involved and how we would have felt were the events occurring in our own life times. The book does really dive into the public opinion at the time as well as those of the various royal families involved and realistically evaluates whether the romanovs could have been saved. I really got a sense for the various personalities involved and how each person's actions led towards political disaster. No one is a saint in this book but no one is demonized either. The writing itself is easy to follow and not a chore to read through as some history books can be. Overall I feel like it comes as close as it realistically can to portraying an honest and fair evaluation of the romanovs chances of survival and the road that led them to their destruction.

Not being a Russophile, I was unaware of the blame game going on as to whose fault it was that the Romanov family was killed. With all of the royal families in Europe being related, one of them should have whisked the family to safety.
England’s King George gets the biggest rap, but Germany’s Emperor Wilhelm seems to have been in a better position, since Germany was dictating terms in the war with Russia. Plus, most of the Romanov women had been German princesses.
Helen Rappaport points out so many factors making escape difficult, if not impossible: the war, the political alliances, personal antipathies, logistics, geography, and the weather. The Soviets wanted the tsar to pay for centuries of despotism; they weren’t going to let him go.
When one throne toppled, the others felt shockwaves. The kings had to protect their own thrones rather than assist the disposed. In any case, there was really only one window of opportunity for the Romanovs to leave, and that was before Nicholas abdicated.
The Romanovs didn’t want to leave Russia, in any case. They would have preferred death to being rescued by Germany. Brutal as it was, that’s what they got.

It seems I’ve always had an affinity for the story of the Romanovs, reading books about them long ago and being interested in them for years. It’s just such a captivating tale, with the large wealthy family in Russia, the ill son that they all dote on, especially when he’s unwell. And of course, the crazy monk that seems to cast a spell over them when he is seemingly able to help several times when the illness was really bad.

This book mainly focuses on all the machinations to try to save the Romanovs during the time they were in Tsarskoe Selo and their future was so uncertain. After Nicholas had abdicated while on the train and then spent time with his mother was probably the ideal time for any real chance to slip away, but with the children ill with measles, it would have been so difficult. It seems that all the planning after that was kind of futile.

This book was written with the aid of a whole suitcase of additional newly added papers lent to the author giving more insight to that period and makes this very up to date. It would appeal to most people who have an interest in this time period in Russia, the Romanovs and their fate and the whole story surrounding them. My thanks for the advance digital copy that was provided by NetGalley, author Helen Rappaport, and the publisher for my review.

St. Martin’s Press
Pub: June 26, 2018

The author did extensive research when writing this book and it shows. Her attention to detail is amazing and truly allowed me to understand the struggles going on behind the scenes when it came to figuring out how to save the Romanovs. Unfortunately, these efforts were not successful. I did not know much about this family prior to reading this book, but thanks to the author's stellar writing I feel informed on the subject and also interested in seeking out more information on this family.

This is an excellent book. Rappaport did an exhaustively thorough job researching every aspect and nuance of the plots and schemes to evacuate the Romanovs. It was fascinating to read all the behind the scenes details, not only of the European governments and diplomats, but also the hidden gems the author was able to ferret in the most obscure places. The Romanovs had a very limited time to leave Russia, and they didn't act on it. How could they know what would happen, being somout of touch with the mood of the country, and as Rappaport suggests, it was unlikely they would have forsaken their beloved Russia. Rappaport also provides details how the Soviet government intentionally misled all about the true fate of the family. This is historical scholarship at its finest.