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[[Category:New Reviews|Biography]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Churchwell1788360702|title=Careless People Murder Mayhem and the Invention of the Great Gatsby|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=In this accomplished literary biography Professor Churchwell expertly weaves together three guest lists- the Fitzgeralds and literary cast of New York, the sensationalist tragic murder victims and suspects of New Brunswick, New Jersey and the careless characters of F. Scott's novel using the Fitzgeralds' archives, newspaper clippingsCharles, literary scrapbooks,diary entries and anecdotes to link the stories and chronicle the heedless hedonism of the 1920s. It is not only a meticulously researched tribute tracing the genesis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s plot skeleton, which he roughly sketched in pencil in the back of a book, entitled Man’s Hope, but it also sparkles with sophisticated vocabulary fizzing with the effervescence of a glass of champagne providing new treats for the reader with each inviting chapter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844087689</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Batchelor|title=TennysonThe Alternative Prince: To strive, to seek, to find|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=Most readers, if they were asked to name the ultimate poet of the Victorian age, would almost surely choose Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He was Poet Laureate for over forty years of Queen Victoria’s reign, and inevitably her favourite versifier.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950763</amazonuk>}} {{newreview |author=Zareer Masani |title=Macaulay: Britain's Liberal Imperialist |rating=4.5 |genre=Biography |summary=If Thomas Babington Macaulay is remembered at all today, it is probably for the historical writings to which he devoted himself during the last few years of his life. Yet earlier in his career, he was also a Member of Parliament, a government minister, and served for some years in India, playing a major reforming role as a member of the governor-general’s council. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587025</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Campbell|title=Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life|rating=5|genre=An Unauthorised Biography|summary=It must be rare indeed that a British political figure who never became Prime Minister is the subject of or deserves a biography comprising 750 pages of text. However, as John Campbell demonstrates in this volume, it is difficult to do justice to the life, times and career of Roy Jenkins in much less than that.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087509</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Walter Dean Myers|title=An African Princess: From African Orphan to Queen Victoria’s Favourite|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=This elegant edition of An African Princess tells of the life of Sarah Bonetta who is suddenly swept from the threat of a savage execution in 1848 only to face a brave new world under the patronage of the imperious Queen Victoria. Meticulously researched by the twice elected US National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Walter Dean Myers, it is a creatively imaginative account, with an historical backbone of genuine diary entries, letters, autobiographical work, contemporary newspapers, social and anthropological studies and period photographs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406354449</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nigel Jones|title=Rupert Brooke: Life, Death and MythEdzard Ernst

|summary=Rupert Chawner Brooke’s reputation as one For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of the greatest or at least best-remembered war poets rests largely on his sonnet alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The SoldierAlternative Prince''critically assesses the Prince's opinions, beliefs and aims against the background of the scientific evidence. Perhaps it was English literature’s abiding loss that There are few instances of his output was so slender, as beliefs being vindicated and his career was cut short so suddenly. Had he lived longer he would surely relentless promotion of treatments which have developed into no scientific support has done considerable damage to the reputation of a notable writerman who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781857164</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amber Hunt and David Batcher1739805100|title=The Kennedy Wives: Triumph and Tragedy in America's Most Public Family|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=The Kennedy dynasty is mainly known for Loving the men who have come to political prominenceEnemy: Jack Kennedy, the president who was assassinated in November 1963, his brother, Bobby, Jack's Attorney General who would be assassinated Building bridges in June 1968 and Senator Edward Kennedy the youngest of the nine children - the only one of the brothers who would, as they say, live to comb grey hair. Not quite so much is known about the women who were brave enough to marry into the family and Amber Hunt and David Batcher have set out to give us some background on five of these women: Rose Kennedy the matriarch of the family and wife of Joe Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of Jack, Ethel, wife of Bobby and Joan and Vicki, the first and second wives a time of Teddy Kennedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0762796340</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Mystery of Princess Louise: Queen Victoria's Rebellious Daughterwar|author=Lucinda HawksleyAndrew March

|summary=As a previous biographer once called her, Princess Louise was Queen Victoria’s unconventional daughter. Always popular with ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the public for her comparatively easygoing manner (thoughquite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, being royal, she was not averse who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to pulling rank), her forward-looking views on social issues, notably education and votes for womenteach in the early days of the Nazi regime in the 1930s. Fred, a sensitive and her artistic intereststhoughtful man, she was certainly one had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the most interesting of her familytime. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951549</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|title=The Frood|author=Jem Roberts|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=They say that you should never meet your heroes. After reading 'The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' a.k.a. ''the Frood'' I understand why. I never heard the original radio series and I have quite deliberately shied away from the Americanised film version (even if it does sell itself well by having Stephen Fry as 'the voice of the book' - I mean, really, in this day and age, who else?!).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184809437X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura ThompsonWill Brooker|title=A Different Class of Murder: The Story of Lord LucanTruth About Lisa Jewell

|summary=Effie Gray Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book she was born reciting, and her being in Perth in 1828a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, and knew art critic John Ruskin from an early agedown the rabbit-hole that is Jewell's diverse output. When Brooker decides he finally decided 'd like nothing more than to ask follow her through a year in the published author's life, working to be his wifemake a success of the latest title, she called off an engagement and happily acceptedstruggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715648578</amazonuk>1529136024

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Victoria: A LifeMartha Leigh|authortitle=Invisible Ink: A N WilsonFamily Memoir|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Every few years Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, it seemsimmediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, we are presented with another generouslyforever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-sized biography Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of Queen Victorialife. How many times can another author follow Elizabeth Longford, Stanley Weintraub, or Christopher Hibbert to name There is love in the house but three, produce 500 pages or more and still say something new about her? Can the blurb’s claim also darker undercurrents that this shows us the sovereign ‘as she’s never been seen before’ really be justified? Fortunately it can, for even more than a century after her death, child does not fully understand but knows is there is still new material from previously unseen sources to add to what we already know about her.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848879563</amazonuk>1800460384

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Lives of the Famous and the Infamous: Everything You Need To Know About Everyone Who MatteredPolly Barton|authortitle=The WeekFifty Sounds

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=To describe Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a book as unputdownable is a pretty bold claim to makewhile and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. Jeremy OAnd like Barton, I don'Grady, editor-in-chief of The Week does just that in t know the foreword answer to The Lives the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the Famous and the Infamous, a collection of obituaries from question in the weekly magazine. Thankfullyfirst essay, his bold judgement which is largely spot on. For those unfamiliar, the sound ''giro'The Week'' collates the best offerings from print media outlets around the world– which she describes as being, condenses them into smaller chunksamong other things, adds a little the sound of its own commentary and creates a highly concise and entertaining look at the news''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091958660</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Golden ParasolFrederic Gros|authortitle=Wendy Law-YoneA Philosophy of Walking

|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=If you look her I confess I picked this one up Wendy Lawfrom the library in my pre-Yone is described as a Burmese-born American authorlockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. That This one had me in the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''Burmese-born American'walking is not a sport' might be an accurate description of her current citizenship, but it barely hints at the ethnic mix of her heritage, nor of her personal closeness (through her father) to her original homeland's struggle for freedom and democracy.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555999</amazonuk>1781688370

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Art of Neil GaimanSharon Blackie|authortitle=Hayley CampbellIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsBiography|summary=An early [[:Category:Neil Gaiman|Neil Gaiman]] book was all about Douglas Adams, and came out at the time he had a success with I normally say that you can tell how much a book of his own regarding definitions of concepts that had previously not had a specific word attachedmeans to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Gaiman himself Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one of those conceptsI've borrowed. I know what a polyglot want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is, definitely the first two and a polymath only time will tell about the third – but there should be a word clichés exist for someone like Gaiman, who can write anything and everything he seems to want – a whimsical family-friendly picture book, a behemoth of modern fantasy, an all-ages horror story, something with a soupcon of sci-fi or with a factor of the fable. He can cross genres – reason and to some extent just leave them behind as unnecessary, as well as cross format – he was mastering the lengthy, literary graphic novel just as I'real' books were festering in his creativity, and songs and poems were just appearing here and there. So he is pretty much who you think of as regards someone who m not sure I can turn his hands to anything he wishes. He is a poly-something, then, or just omni-something elsesuccinctly put it any better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781571392</amazonuk>1912836017

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Thompson0241446732|title=A Corner Our House is on Fire: Scenes of Paradise: A love story (with the usual reservations)a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In the early seventies Brian Thompson met Elizabeth North, both of them part of failing marriages which would have died without any intervention on their partsThe Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. They became friends, they fell in love but they never felt the need to marry Malena Ernman was an opera singer and would be together until Liz's death in 2010 at Svante Thunberg took on most of the age parenting of seventy eighttheir two daughters. Both are authors Then eleven-year- Thompson would maintain that North old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the better writer - and North would perhaps have said family that they were ''sheburned-out people on a burned-out planet'' should have made that clear. ''A Corner of Paradise'' tells the story - not of the homes If they lived in - but of the joy of were to find a way to live happily again their relationshipsolution would need to be radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581868</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0648684806|title=Grace: Her Lives - Her LovesClara Colby: The startling royal exposéInternational Suffragist|author=Robert LaceyJohn Holliday

|summary=TwentyThe path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-five years before another so-called fairytale royal romance which turned out old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to be anything butsail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, one both in and out of America’s most beloved screen goddesses crossed school. She was the only child in the Atlantic household and married into the principality of Monacoher childhood was glorious. The ceremony By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in 1956 was hailed as the wedding mid-west of the yearUnited States and life was hard, but like as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the later family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and similar eventdied in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, it a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was not the happiest of unionsa rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>191016738X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789017977|title=One RiverRonnie and Hilda's Romance: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon RainforestTowards a New Life after World War II|author=Wade DavisWendy Williams|rating=4.5|genre=TravelHistory|summary=As someone who has always enjoyed learning about Ronnie Williams was the Amazon, son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and with plans Ethel Wall. There's some doubt as to travel whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to South America next yearhave been born in 1863, this book practically screamed at me to be reviewedbut he was already many years older than Ethel and he might well have shaved a few years off his age. And, although For a little tough going and long-winded in partswhile, I'm glad I had the opportunity family was quite well-to get lost -do but disaster struck in Davis' incredible work of nonthe 1929 Depression and five-year-fiction. Difficult old Ronnie had to adjust to describe in terms of genre, this book combines history, politics, science, botany and culturea very different lifestyle. It is delivered through a biographical account of Davis' own travels and as a memoir One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to Richard Evans Schultes, an ethnobotanist be well known for -turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his work and travels life. He joined the army at eighteen in the Amazon and Wade Davis' highly regarded mentor1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099592967</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Angela Merkel: The Chancellor and Her WorldPatti Smith|authortitle=Stefan KorneliusYear of the Monkey

|summary=You have to admire On the ladycoast of Santa Cruz, this rather awkward and shy daughter Patti Smith enters the lunar year of a staunch Lutheran pastor who himself had been born as a Polish Catholic. His daughter studied the monkey - one packed with such intelligence mischief, sorrow, and application that soon brought her academic success particularly in Russian and finally in Quantum Chemistryunexpected moments. In a stranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, it's the year of the monkey''. At As Smith wanders the age coast of 26Santa Cruz in solitude, she obtained reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her doctorate life - loss and ageing are faced head- in passingon, as it rather seems - her first husband, the physicist Ulrike Merkelshifting political waters in America. Her rise |isbn=1526614758}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1912242052|title=O Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=3|genre=Art|summary=''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to power was rapid and took place through walk the period in which the DDR collapsed mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as Russian policy under Gorbachev changeda miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. Along His rapturous encounters with a wry their natural beauty, and dry sense of humour Angela Merkel’s personality is the embodiment its literary consequences, changed our view of the characteristic known in German as world''fleissig.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Graff_Find|title=Find Another Place|author=Ben Graff|rating=3.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=When Ben Graff's grandfather Martin handed him a plastic folder of handwritten notes from his journal, he didn' - hardworkingt take much notice of it. At the age of 24, sedulous, diligent and assiduousGraff didn't realise the gravity of the pages he was holding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883180</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789016304|title=Blazing StarWar and Love: The Life and Times A family's testament of John Wilmotanguish, Earl of Rochesterendurance and devotion in occupied Amsterdam|author=Alexander LarmanMelanie Martin|rating=45

|summary=John WilmotMelanie Martin read about what happened to Dutch Jews in occupied Amsterdam during World War II and was entranced by what she discovered, 2nd Earl of Rochester, was the ultimate particularly in 'live fast, die young' icon of the Stuart age, the seventeenth-century embodiment The Diary of Ann Frank''Hope I die before I get oldbut then realised that her own family's stories were equally fascinating. Restoration dandy, satirist A hundred and pornographic poet, he died a lingering death at seven thousand Jews were deported from the city during the age of 33war years, racked by venereal disease but only five thousand survived and alcoholismMartin could not understand how this could be allowed to happen in a country with liberal values who were resistant to German occupation. If he is remembered at all these days, except by Most people believed that the occupation could never happen: even those familiar with who thought that the history or literature of Germans might reach the agecity were convinced that they would soon be pushed back, it is as that the James Dean or Amsterdammers would never allow what happened to escalate in the Keith Moon of his dayway that it did, a hellraiser whose poetry was heavily suppressed for many years by but initial protests melted away as the censorsorganisers became more circumspect. In fact much It's an atrocity on a vast scale but made up of tens of his verse was not published under his name until long after his death, and as most thousands of it was only circulated in manuscript form during his lifetime and a good deal destroyed by his mother after his death, it is uncertain how much does still surviveindividual tragedies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851093</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1786893452|title=Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in FranceThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Stephen ClarkeDina Nayeri|rating=4.5

|summary=Although he was Anglo-German by birthHere in the West, so Stephen Clarke suggestswe see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, King Edward VII was very much a Parisian by naturesome scaremongering about them. As we would expect from the author But all of several lighthearted books on our Gallic neighboursthose stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, including ‘1000 Years of Annoying no matter how deep the French’investigative journalism they carry out, this is not outsiders to the most weighty or solemn biography of world and the King you will ever situations that refugees findthemselves in. It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, but it is certainly an entertainingin this intelligent, racy gallop through powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the life middle of its subjecta revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780890346</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0857058320|title=Josephine: Desire, Ambition, NapoleonLord Of All the Dead|author=Kate WilliamsJavier Cercas and Anne McLean (translator)

|summary=Until reading this biography, it had never really occurred ''Lord Of All the Dead'' is a journey to me just how shadowy a figure uncover the author's lost ancestor's life and death. Cercas is searching for the meaning behind his great uncle's death in the first wife of Napoleon BonaparteSpanish Civil War. Manuel Mena, Cercas' great uncle, one of is the best-known European rulers of figure who looms large over the age, really wasbook. He died relatively young whilst fighting for Francisco Franco's forces. Cercas ruminates on why his uncle fought for this dictator. It may The question at the centre of this book is whether it is possible for his great uncle to be common knowledge that her name was Josephine, but few of us perhaps really know anything of the woman behind a hero whilst having fought for the namewrong side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009955142X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788037812|title=The DevonshiresFraternity of the Estranged: The Story of a Family and a NationFight for Homosexual Rights in England, 1891-1908|author=Roy HattersleyBrian Anderson|rating=45

|summary=According to Originally passed in 1885, the back of law that had made homosexual relations a crime remained in place for 82 years. But during this booktime, ‘the story of the Devonshires is the story of Britain’restrictions on same-sex relationships did not go unchallenged. That’s an extravagant claimBetween 1891 and 1908, but it contains more than a germ three books on the nature of truthhomosexuality appeared. Certainly one would be hard-pushed to find an aristocratic, non-royal British family who has more consistently been central to our history since medieval timesThey were written by two homosexual men: Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, as this detailed chronicle demonstrateswell as the heterosexual Havelock Ellis. From Exploring the dissolution margins of society and studying homosexuality was common on the monasteries under Henry VIII presided over European Continent, but barely talked about in part by Sir William Cavendishthe UK, father so the publications of the first Earl, these men were hugely significant – contributing to the big business that their ancestral home Chatsworth House in Derbyshire has now becomescientific understanding of homosexuality, and beginning the somewhat inaccurately geographically-named Devonshires have often been, or helped tostruggle for recognition and equality, contribute leading to, part of the fabric milestone legalisation of Britain’s past and presentsame-sex relationships in 1967.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554399</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Buckland_Zoo|title=The Life Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of Rebecca Jonesnatural history|author=Angharad PriceRichard Girling|rating=4.5

|summary=A newly-married couple make their way home from As a conservationist in Victorian England before the chapelterm existed, riding on Frank Buckland was very much a horse-drawn cart as it winds its way round familiar country lanes towards the beautiful valley man ahead of Maesglasauhis time. The horse pauses atop a hill Surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian and eccentric sums him up perfectly, and the valley spreads out before them: 'the vessel of their marriage'. The centuries-old stone farmhouse in the crook of the mountain any biographer is to be their homestead; immediately presented with a sturdy, silent witness colourful tale to the tragedy and joy that is an intrinsic part of the fabric of family lifetell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085738712X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Williams_Captain|title=Wilkie CollinsCaptain Ronald Campbell of Bombala Station, Cambalong: A His Military Life of Sensationand Times|author=Andrew LycettIvor George Williams

|summary=Wilkie Collins has come down to us as In March 1829 Ann Parker married Captain J A Edwards of the chief exponent 17th Regiment of the Victorian ‘sensation novel’Foot. This He was in command of the genre of story written specifically troops and convicts on board a ship sailing from Plymouth to expose deep-rooted domestic or family secrets, uncovering illegitimacy, bigamy or other irregular activities by supposedly respectable citizens leading outwardly normalSydney, uneventful lives. There were mysteries, deceptions, betrayals, evil characters Australia: his wife and good innocent onesyoung son accompanied him. Measured by these standards, he led a ‘sensational’ life himself. When He was not writing novels, short stories, plays or articles for journals in order destined to earn live a livinglong life, this apparently fine upstanding bachelor maintained two households, two mistresses, and children dying suddenly at the same time – and managed age of 34 at Bangalore, leaving his widow to keep them raise their two young sons. Edwards' death left his widow in a secret from difficult position: not only did she have their farm to manage, but she was also responsible for the public convicts who worked the land. Two years later she would doubtless have been scandalized to know the truthmarry Captain Ronald Campbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099557347</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Peacock_mountain|title=Four Sisters:Into The Lost Lives Mountain, A Life of the Romanov Grand DuchessesNan Shepherd|author=Helen RappaportCharlotte Peacock|rating=4.5

|summary=A few years ago, Helen Rappaport wrote Mostly we choose what books to read because there is so little time and published [[Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of so many books… I can understand the Romanovs approach, but I also think we sell ourselves short by Helen Rappaport|Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of it, and we sell the Romanovs]]myriad lesser-known authors short as well. So while, a painstakinglike most other people I have my favourite genres, chilling account of the final days and death of the last Tsar of Russia favoured authors, and his family. To a certain extent this biography is a prequel to that volumewhile, an account of like most other people I read the short lives of OTMAreviews and follow up on what appeals, as they referred I also have a third-string to themselves – the Tsar’s daughters Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasiamy reading bow: randomness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230768172</amazonuk>