This book came to be written by accident (Robert Massie was researching haemophilia) & I read it be accident. The cover & subject didn't appeal but a copy was laying around & out of boredom I flicked it open & began reading. The mystery of Anastsia is prob. what most people think about when the last Russian Royal family is brought up, and that really was the extent of my knowledge prior to reading this whoops I nearly said novel. Because it recounts one of the greatest events in Russian history, and is also very much a love story. Nicholas and Alexandra could give Romeo & Juliet a run for their money. They loved their children too. And there lay their tragedy. The youngest son inherited haemophilia, probably from our own Queen Victoria. If this had been common knowledge, it might just have saved the royal family. As it was no-one could understand the high regard they held the self proclaimed mystic Rusputin.
Almost undoubtedly the man was something of a hynoptic individual. And when their beloved younger son was screaming with pain in unbearable agony due to his internal bleeding, Rusputin appeared to be able to help the child.
So while the great war raged around them, and Russian peasants starved and the aristocracy were kept in the dark, Nicholas and Alexandra were so involved with their own magic circle of daughters, son and the man of god who seemed able to cure the boy, that they missed all the danger signals.

A great book and highly recommended. It works on all fronts. A tragic doomed family for all their wealth and power.