Isobelle discovers her mother, Sophia has been keeping a secret from her all her life! How could her mother not tell her about her life in Russia? Why keep it hidden and now that she has died it means Isobelle has to go on a treasure hunt to find out how her mother got this tiara!

The author takes us on a tour of Russian History that is so memorable and entices one to do further digging after finishing the book on the subject matter of the Last Tiara! We are weaved between Sophias time and then as Isobelle discovers the pieces of her mother’s life and the father she never met.

This book is fantastic and I definitely would recommend to anyone!

I received an advanced copy from NetGalley and these are my willingly given thoughts and opinions!

This is the first MJ Rose book I have read, and I really enjoyed the intertwined love stories of Sofiya and her daughter Isobelle. Told in alternating chapters, Sofiya’s love story transports the reader to the years just prior to the Russian Revolution, while Isobelle’s takes place in 1940s New York. After Sofiya dies unexpectedly, Isobelle unearths a mysterious tiara, and begins a quest to learn how her mother came to have it, and why her mother never told her about it or any other aspect of her life in Russia.. She knows that her father was named Carpathian, whom her mother loved deeply, but who died in a Siberian prison, but nothing more. Isobelle needs to understand, and the tiara is the key. Along the way, Isobelle meets Jules, a jeweler whose shop has a connection to the tiara.
I was more invested in Sofiya and Carpathian’s story than in Jules and Isobelle’s, but I still enjoyed both. The book moved really quickly and the end was satisfying. I look forward to reading more by this author.

The Last Tiara is an engrossing historical novel centering on Isobelle Moon, an architect in post WWII New York.
Isobelle discovers a hidden tiara in her mother Sophia’s apartment while renovating it after her death. Isobelle knows little about her Russian mother’s past during WWI and the Russian Revolution. She hopes this tiara will provide some answers.
The novel moves effortlessly back and forth between the time periods of 1915-1922 and 1948 as Sophia’s story unravels and Isobelle’s quest for answers is revealed.
This is the first novel of M.J. Rose that I have read in several years . It kept my interest throughout. I would have liked to have seen the character of Isobelle’s father further developed, explaining more about his life after the revolution . I think this would have added to the depth of the novel.
Thank you to NetGalley and Blue Box Press for the ARC.

I truly enjoyed this book. The flow and character development was on point. I wish there were a couple more ends that got tied up but overall, this story was amazing.

Isobelle's mother has passed away. She decides to make their home more her style so she begins renovating in her mother's bedroom. As she is removing the wallpaper she discovers a small niche. In this she finds a box with a silver frame of what looks like a tiara. The frame doesn't hold any stones that a piece like this would normally have. There are also two receipts with the tiara frame. They indicate that the diamonds had been removed and sold. The larger spaces held sapphires but these were described as paste.
Isobelle assumes that these jewels were used to buy the building in which they live and have their restoration shop.
Wondering how her mother could have owned such an item, Isobelle wishes her mother had told her about her life in Russia before moving to New York. Her mother never discussed her past. Nor even told her about her father. Isobelle's curiosity and unanswered questions will send her on an adventure full of danger and intrigue.
A great read. Interesting characters and amazing story.

I really enjoyed this novel. I have read a number of historical fiction novels about the Russian Revolution and found this perspective to be very interesting. I also enjoyed reading about Isobelle's struggles as a woman in the predominately male field of architecture in the late 1940s. The secrets revealed through the two time frames worked well and added depth to the story. I strongly recommend this read!

The story took a little bit to catch my interest, but once my interest was caught it was hard to put the book down! Isobelle is a relatable heroine and her mother’s story is captivating. The author did a great job providing just enough information about her mother’s life to keep the story interesting. The plot—a missing piece of Russian jewelry and a mother’s past to uncover—is exciting and well-crafted. My only two complaints were that I wished there were a resolution with Isobelle’s job, and I am not personally a fan of sex scenes so the fact that there were three or four meant I was skipping a few pages at a time.

This is the best book I have ever read by MJ Rose, and I have read around three of them. She appears to be getting better and better. Isobelle, the main character, is the subject of her mother, reaching out from beyond the grave, to try and tell her what she did not tell her in her lifetime. This does not work entirely,
Isabelle then finds a diamond and sapphire tiara, that leads her to try and find out how her mother got the item. Her search uncovers secrets, and Jules becomes involved. He is the jeweller that she made enquiries from, regarding the receipts. And I will stop there, before I do any spoilers. The reader will have to find out the rest for themselves. All I can say is that the novel is a great book, and I found it difficult to put down, I could not wait to finish it. Highly recommended.

M. J. Rose does the most incredible research for her novels, and I always learn fascinating things while reading them. This book was no exception. But, the characters in this one were a disappointment. I kept hoping Isobelle would grow a spine.

I wanted to love this novel, but in the end found it interesting but flawed. It's very much plot driven, and the characters are minimally fleshed out. The main character, Isobelle, was annoying in her constant questioning of her own worth and insatiable need for reassurance. And the plot, while interesting, was too often interrupted with unnecessary details about places, furnishings, events, as if the author felt compelled to include every morsel she'd uncovered during her research, whether it moved the story forward or not. The story meandered around the globe as well as back and forth in time, with more foreshadowing, coincidences, and plot twists than seemed necessary. Settings include Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where Isobelle had a failed affair that continued to plague her throughout the novel; pre-revolution St. Petersburg and other parts of Russia, where Isobelle's mother, Sophyia, had shared a close friendship with the Tsar's daughters and had also met Isobelle's father; France, where a key to the central secret of the novel is discovered; London, where more of the mystery unspools; and NYC, where Isobelle lives and works as an architect. I continued reading right to the happily-ever-after ending just to see how it all concluded, but can't say I actually cared much about any of the characters.
2-1/2 stars, rounded up to 3

In this fantastical novel, Sophia Moon (also known by another name) flees Russia with the Last Tiara of the treasure of the Romanovs. The story flashes between New York City in the late 1940s and pre-revolutionary Russia. I really wanted to enjoy this, but found myself incredibly bored throughout the novel. It's okay but I won't be reading it again.