The Curse of the Romanovs - Hardcover

Rabin, Staton

3.39

353 ratings by Goodreads

9781416902089: The Curse of the Romanovs

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416902082 ISBN 13: 9781416902089

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2007

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Alexei Romanov, heir to the Russian throne, is in deadly danger.

It�s 1916, the struggling Russian people are tired of war and are blaming their Romanov rulers for it, and some are secretly plotting to murder the young heir and his family. But nobody outside the palace knows that Alexei suffers from a terrible bleeding disease, hemophilia, which threatens to finish him off even before the family�s enemies can. The only person able to help Alexei is the evil and powerful religious mystic Rasputin -- and now Rasputin is trying to kill him too! Desperate, Alexei flees through time to New York City in 2010, using a method taught to him by the mad monk himself.

In New York, Alexei meets smart and sassy Varda Rosenberg, and discovers she is a distant cousin. Varda is working on a gene therapy cure for hemophilia, as the disease still runs in the family. When Alexei learns that history shows that his entire family will be assassinated in 1918, he and Varda travel back in time to the Russian Revolution, with Rasputin hot on their heels. Will they be able to rescue Alexei�s family before it�s too late?

Staton Rabin lets Alexei tell his own riveting story in a rousing adventure with stunning surprises -- a movingly authentic look at royalty and revolution in the days of the tsars.

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About the Author:

Staton Rabin has a B.F.A. in film from New York University. In addition to writing for children, she is a screenwriter; a popular speaker about the art, craft, and business of writing for film; and a veteran story analyst for Scr(i)pt magazine, screenwriters, and producers. Staton Rabin lives in Irvington, New York.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 6–8—Historical fiction, fantasy, and horror are woven together with hints of sex and romance in this improbable story of Alexei, the last heir to the throne of Russia. Tsarevich Alexei suffers from hemophilia, and his frequent bouts with this painful disease often bring him to death's door. Fortunately Father Grigory, otherwise known as Rasputin, using horrifying hocus pocus, has been able to save him. In one of his cures, he tells Alexei that his "blood-river" can move him back and forth in time and place, a useful bit of knowledge. After Alexei secretly sees Rasputin intimidating the tsarina, he confides in a relative who makes an assassination attempt—Rasputin is poisoned, shot, declared dead, and thrown into a river. Unfortunately the dead man climbs out of the river and chases Alexei, who tries the trick of time travel and ends up in one of New York City's rivers in 2010. He's resuscitated on the riverbank by a future relative, a high school girl who just happens to be researching hemophilia. Of course, Rasputin appears as the high school janitor and the story lurches on. Everyone time travels back to Russia where Rasputin is finally killed, and Alexei and his future relative attempt to rescue the royal family, now imprisoned. It's all too much. In the end, history kind of takes over, but not quite. Except for Alexei, the characters are flat, the writing confusing and clunky, and the plot more suited to a genre movie than a book. Clearly the author did a great deal of research; the end matter is copious and interesting.—Barbara Scotto, Michael Driscoll School, Brookline, MA
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