No fictional series would have dared present a story half so full of strife - and hate as well as love - as that of Rose and her mistress ... The book is full of wry humour as well as splendid anecdotes which make it extremely jolly reading for those who don't have to live through the experiences. The period touches are fascinating, ranging from the grim to the purely enjoyable

Fascinating, outspoken, yet respectful, loving, yet indignant: a social document of mistress and maid, in station opposite, but in temperament equal ...

Unique insight into the splendours and miseries of Clivedon ... stuffed with interesting and amusing anecdotes

Emminently readable

Fascinating and deliciously readable

A crackling comedy of manners ... this combative but oddly affectionate relationships is the book's centre. Surround it is a and a delectable assortment of tales about the habits of over-priviledged Britishers and the people who served them

A compelling and affecting saga that resonates long after the reading. Montefiore's depiction of the epoch is superb. The language is precise and evocative without getting in the way of the storyline. Its evocation of 20th Century Russia is so intoxicating it made want to buy a plane ticket and find out more for myself. I can't remember being as moved by the fate of a character in a novel for some time

A must read! Montefiore polishes all the facets of a good story - secrets, lies, betrayal, love and death - and places them in Russia's grand setting

Gripping... moves you to tears

This completely addictive story offers an authoratative insight into Stalin's USSR and, in its huge characters and epic ambition, carries echoes of Tolstoy himself

A heartbreaking tale of passion, betrayal and an unthinkable decision

A compelling novel of passions and secrets, politics and lies, love and betrayal, savagery and survival

Sweeping historical epic about a daring young woman forced to make a hard choice in Stalinist Russia

Excellent... the historical detail is strong. The characterisation is superb, with Sashenka being especially well drawn. With her unwanted beauty and charisma, her gentle nobility that transcends class or wealth and her earnest ideals which eventually cost her so much. Sashenka commands out total sympathy, and when she is forced apart from her children, the sadness is profound and hard to dispel. A powerful novel... with a heroine who lingers in the mind when the story is finished

Sashenka is grand in scale, rich in historical research, and yet never loses the flow of an addictive, racy, well-wrought plot. It combines a moving, satisfyingly just-neat-enough finale with a warning - that history has an awful habit of repeating itself

An epic novel... The suspense lasts until the final pages. There is no let-up. At the end of the book, you really feel that even though Sashenka is a fictional character, she has become one of the thousands of real people who haunt the Moscow archives that Montefiore knows so well