For readers eager to discover a little more about the mysteries of those who were part of some Court.
Undoubtedly, the life of Julie of Saxe-Coburg is full of ups and downs, suffering and moments of unexpected relief, and even though her name has been forgotten in official history, it will still be remembered for centuries to come.
4 stars

A digital ARC from NetGalley.As always with Helen Rappaport, the research for this biography is impressive. One feels as if living along side Julie through all her travails. I would recommend this book to anyone who appreciates 19th century Russian history and its influence on life in Europe…and how a small German town, Coburg ended up helping to populate many royal thrones throughout.

What a fabulous book! Beautifully written and extremely well researched. It truly brought Julie Saxe-Coburg Brought to life for me. She is a royal that I was not as familiar with and I really enjoyed learning about her.

"The Rebel Romanov" by Helen Rappaport is a well written and engaging look at the little remembed royal adjacent Julie of Saxe-Coburg. Extremely well written and researched, I found the glimpses of Russian royal house perhaps more interesting than Julie herself. We hear the myths of Catherine the Great but to "see" her in action is something magnificent to behold. I really enjoyed this look at niche history. The narrative was engaging and fun to read. Wonderful book. Highly recommend if you enjoy history or just a good story.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an early copy of this to read for review.
Helen Rappaport has a flow with her words that make biographies read with an easy flow. This one was so interesting and made me want to read more. She made it quick. Without adding too much, this story was full, made it feel complete and entertaining. Made me want to look up more information along the way.
Thank you for creating a wonderful reading experience.

I was Interested in Julie because I wanted to learn more about the Romanow’s and the Saxe-Coburg family with Leopold been the first King of the Belgians.
I always knew the current royal houses of Europe are mostly related to each other and this book gave a clear oversight of the first stages of these intermingled families. It really shows how daughters were used in marriage to advance the position of the Saxe-Coburg dynasty.
The sons were not much better off, but they did have a little more choice in the matter. With all the arranged marriages it is easy to understand disastrous results. Did not help that the men regularly had a mistress on the side. Julie was only 14 years old when she got married to Constantine. A man who was cruel to both Julie and the soldiers he oversaw.
This book is 336 pages and if you are not into reading all the descriptions of landscape, castles, clothing and family related to each other, then this book is not for you. If you enjoy historical stories, then I can recommend it. The Authur took the time to do the research, and it shows.

Interesting look into a royal world and a time where women were either very powerful or had little or no input into the course of their lives. Julie of Saxe-Coburg falls into the second category. A princess, but not the fairy tale kind we envy. Chosen by Catherine the Great of Russia as the bride for her grandson Constantine, Julie, told who to marry and where to live, was thrown into a court full of intrigue and plotting and with no one to look out for her. Although her new husband was unpredictable and often violent her father refused to let her return to Germany. Marriages were made for political reasons and the wishes of the bride were not a concern.

After she was finally allowed to leave the court her life became rather rudderless – many men, children she was forced to give up – but even when asked by Constantine to return she refused, preferring to live life on her own terms.

Apparently there is a scarcity of historical information about Julie. Nevertheless, author Helen Rappaport has created a well-written, meticulously researched and documented, incredibly detailed, fact-filled story about not only Julie of Saxe-Coburg but many more well-known figures of the time. Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for providing an advance copy of The Rebel Romanov. It captured and held my attention. I voluntarily leave this review; all opinions are my own.

I want to thank St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for review.

First, I want to get this out of the way. This book's title is misleading on two fronts. Julie of Saxe-Coburg was not likely to become Empress of Russia. There was a possibility that she could have been Empress as her husband was the heir apparent to the Russian throne, but due to her husband and her mother-in-law it seems unlikely that Julie would have ever been granted the title. Also, this book is not just about Julie of Saxe-Coburg, but her relationships, particularly her place in history as the aunt of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. So, the narrow focus of the title is a bit misleading to the reader.

Now that is out of the way. This book is incredibly interesting and I enjoyed reading it. I honestly had no idea that Queen Victoria had aunts, something I might have learned were I to examine a family tree more closely. Before this book, I thought her Uncle Leopold was the only maternal relationship that Queen Victoria had outside of Britian. So, I commend Rappaport for bringing this reclusive and fascinating woman into the spotlight. Given what little personal accounting of her life survives in the archives it is a true testament to Rappaport's research skills that she painted a coherent biography of a life touched by tragedy.

While I got a sense of Julie as a person, I think that because she left so little record in the archives Julie fades into the background of her biography. In many instances, Rappaport fills in the gaps by situating what is known in the larger European contexts often focusing on her two brothers Ernest and Leopold. However, I would have liked to see more regarding her relationships with her sisters, particularly Antoinette and Victoria (Queen Victoria's mother). Given what was presented I was left a little confused by Julie and her sister Antoinette. There were tensions about Antoinette's feelings on the state of Julie's marriage, but I felt there might have been more to explore. Also, aside from wanting to visit each other, I felt that Julie's relationship with Victoria (Queen Victoria's mother) was hardly mentioned in the work.

Although, I did enjoy the detailed discussions of Julie's relationships with her friends particularly her relationships with Tzar Alexander and Louise of Baden (Russian name Elizabeth Alexeievna). This was the heart of the discussions of Julie at the Imperial Court and Rapport did an excellent job of bringing everyone's personalities out on the page it has made me interested in learning more about these figures, too. It was also a heartwarming part of the story to see the found family that Julie built around herself throughout her life. While she had relationships with her siblings there were certain aspects of her life, that they did not understand and she did not feel comfortable sharing with them.

I appreciated the care with which Rappaport approached the domestic violence issues discussed throughout the work. For the period, it speaks volumes that nearly everyone in the know commented on how Julie was treated. It also speaks volumes about Julie's strength and determination to take the actions that she did.

Overall, this book helped me fill in some of the missing pieces of the puzzle in understanding British relations with Russia during the reign of Queen Victoria. I recently read Queen Victoria's Favourite Granddaughter by Ilana D. Miller it mentioned that Queen Victoria had misgivings about her granddaughters Ella and Alix marrying into the Russian royal family. At first, I thought it was because of the assassinations and general unrest, but Rappaport makes it clear that the treatment of Aunt Julie might have also played a role in Queen Victoria's outlook. I think that this book not only presents an interesting perspective on the ruling house of Saxe-Coburg but also provides clear insights into how Queen Victoria's own family approached things, such as destroying personal effects (something Leopold did after Julie's death and Beatrice did after Queen Victoria's) and hiding secrets from one's family (thinking specifically of the rumours regarding Louise and an illegitimate child).

I would recommend this book. Julie Saxe-Coburg is someone that history should not forget even with limited primary evidence of her life. Rappaport has written a biography highlighting Julie's importance to her family and history.

Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Classism
Moderate: Pregnancy, War
Minor: Infertility, Rape, Sexual assault, Death of a parent

Clearly Helen Rappaport's book was impeccably researched, but for me it read like a history lesson. If you are already familiar with the Romanov stories you may find Julie of Saxe Coburg, aunt of Queen Victoria of England interesting as a lesser known personage. The first wife of Constantine, an abusive and philandering husband, she didn't lead a happy life. For me, the story became bogged down by the many aristocratic names and relationships to the point I never became invested in the story. The title seems to characterize her a rebel but, in fact, that side of her never really lived up to my expectation.

The title is misleading, I'll say up front; if you're looking for a rousing tale of an early campaigner for the rights of women a la Mary Wollstonecroft or Olympe de Gouges or even Queen Christina, you're going to be disappointed. Julie is a very minor figure on the Eastern European/Russian scene before, during, and after the Napoleonic ructions, about whom almost nothing has been written, her scant letters mostly lost, even her grave lost.

On the other hand, if you want an engaging look at the weird tangle of dynastic marriages as borders got drawn and redrawn before Napoleon blustered through, then retreated again, leaving the map of Europe to be redrawn yet again, you might find this book as worthwhile as I did. There just isn't much written in English about that end of Europe during the late eighteenth century and early-mid nineteenth; Napoloeon seems to take up al the real estate history-wise. Though glimpses into Julie's inner life pretty much all are supposition, there is enough quoted from period letters and memoirs to furnish us vivid glimpses of the other major players, plus what it was like to travel at that time.

This book is a great glimpse of the end of Catherine the Great's life, the tangle of her descendants' lives, and how yet another hapless daughter of nobility/royaltie got cut adrift, her life pretty much shipwrecked by politics and the rotten behavior of men. And julie's husband Konstantin, to whom she was married at age fourteen, is a prime example of a thoroughly nasty piece of work.

Helen Rappaport’s The Rebel Romanov breathes life into the long-overlooked story of Princess Julie of Saxe-Coburg—a woman whose defiance, heartbreak, and quiet rebellion unfolded in the shadows of imperial Russia. With her signature skill for unearthing the hidden lives of royal women, Rappaport delivers a biography that is as meticulously researched as it is emotionally resonant.

Thrust into the Russian court by Catherine the Great herself, Julie’s story mirrors that of her infamous matchmaker—an outsider brought in to stabilize the dynasty, only to find herself isolated, used, and eventually discarded. Married to the volatile Grand Duke Constantine, Julie endured a relationship marked by cruelty and contradiction, her every move scrutinized by a court obsessed with power and propriety.

What sets this biography apart is Rappaport’s sympathetic, yet unflinching portrayal of Julie’s internal world. Her struggle for personal freedom—especially in an era when royal women were expected to endure in silence—is both heartbreaking and inspiring. From her failed marriage to her desperate attempts to reclaim her autonomy, Julie emerges not as a victim, but as a woman ahead of her time.

At times, the pacing slows under the weight of political detail and dynastic context, which might feel heavy for readers drawn more to the personal than the political. But these moments are balanced by poignant glimpses into Julie’s letters, emotional conflicts, and the high personal cost of her decisions.

The Rebel Romanov is a richly told, quietly powerful portrait of a woman who defied expectations, and in doing so, paid dearly—but on her own terms. A must-read for fans of untold royal histories and the quiet revolutions led by women history tried to forget.

For those who think that the rich/royal had it made, in the past and in the present, this book, The Rebel Romanov, makes one realize that money and/or rank/nobility have their own unique set of problems. Combined with royal princesses being married off when many were barely teenagers, knowing little of the world beyond their secluded palaces, and not knowing their prospective mates, became a nightmare for so many even into the 20th century, and considering this started in the time of Russia's Catherine the Great, trying to find wives for her grandsons, things were even worse back then. Having no choice as to one's marriage partner, and having to endure living with a certifiably insane man, this particular princess endured it as long as she could, and finally fled, to live in many places trying to find both true love--not easy when one was still married to the less-than-admirable Grand Duke--and a place of her own to feel safe and happy. Also not so easy considering Napoleon was making Europe a very torn apart continent. However, she persevered and did find a place of her own, in Switzerland, though true love escaped her, and the two illegitimate children she bore didn't play a huge part in her life.

I've always been fascinated with the Romanov dynasty, and this particular Romanov was one I wasn't familiar with, so it was a pleasure to read this and find out more about a woman who was almost cursed by her royalty, but eventually endeavored to make her own place in the world. Women still aren't able, for the most part, to compete as equals with men, and 200 years ago, just imagine how much worse they had it! Reading this book made me rather thankful to be a middle class woman with no fortune or nobility to trade for a tiara!

I am so grateful to have read this book! A huge thank you to MacMillian, Tantor Audio, and Netgalley for the ebook and audiobook of this!

Publishes 4.15!

This was like a juicy gossipy insider's look to the all the royal courts in the late 1700s-1840s. I really loved how interconnected the story was with Queen Victoria's family, the Russian Romanovs, and the other courts.

This was a fascinating biography on the life of Julie Saxe-Coberg who became married to Konstantine, the grandson of Catherine the Great (through her son's Paul's line). While Konstantin abdicated his thrown to his younger brother Nicholas 1, Julie became known as the Empress who Russia could have had. Born to a financially failing royal like of Saxe-Coberg, Julie secures financial support through her marriage with Konstantin who sadly mistreated her so much to the point she fled within their early years of marraige (married in her teens). I was fascinating by the political moves from her mother Auguste and Catherine the Great and loved how Auguste secured advantageous marriages for nearly all of her children (Victoire- Queen Victoria's mother), her son Leopold (married Princess Charlotte), etc.

The audiobook read really easy and well and while there were a bunch of characters, the author did a good job at refreshing us who they were.

A fascinating look at history during this period and was the PERFECT context for reading War & Peace and those interested in the life and politics of the time. Especially loved the inside view of the Romanov courts! I really loved the footnotes as well as the journal entry passages that were shared. Having been to Riga Lativa it was fun to hear about the descriptions of the city from the late 1700s.

The Romanovs are my Roman Empire so I JUMP at any opportunity to read anything based on or about the family (even though she wasn't part of the family long). This is a very well researched biography of Julie of Saxe-Colberg and I love that her story is being told. This book is informative without seeming like a history textbook.

Dr. Helen Rappaport is an expert in Imperial Russia and brings this story to life. I love her writing style because it isn't dry and boring like some history books/novels.

It is amazing to see how one woman's independence and determination had an affect on multiple countries. Queen Victoria became hesitant to get involved with the Imperial family based on Julie's experience alone.

I can't wait for the next book by Dr. Rappaport. I love this time period and she never disappoints.

In 18th c Europe, daughters were married off for political and economic advantage, too often fated to suffer loveless marriages. Julie of Save-Coburg was fourteen, pretty, and vivacious when she and her two sisters went to St. Petersburg for Catherine the Great’s younger grandson Konstantin to consider as potential brides.

The sisters were stunned by the Russian city, the opulent court with its splendid gowns and flashing jewels. They were provincial in their dress and Catherine had to order silk gowns made to bring them up to court standards.

Julie won sixteen-year-old Konstantin’s eye. He seemed charming at first, but he had a sadistic streak. He later marched his soldiers into freezing, teeming rivers for a lark, set Julie into a large vase and fired his gun at it, and when boasting about her charms, ordered her to show his drinking buddies. He loved her, in his own psychotic way. But she was miserable.

Konstantin abused her and likely gave her a sexually transmitted disease. He would relent and behave for a while, but then fell back into his profligate ways with his soldiers.

Konstantin sneered that Julie’s brother-in-law Duke Ernst II had a kingdom comprising “six peasants and two village surgeons.” The tax income couldn’t pay for a Duke’s lifestyle. Julie’s marriage not only connected her family to royalty, she became a source of much needed funds from Russia.

So, there was fourteen-year-old Julie, studying the Russian Orthodox faith, preparing to marry a man whose best side she had only seen, a sacrificial lamb. Years later, Leopold regretted all that his sister lost in the bargain, her life wasted.

Julie escaped Russia by claiming that her ailing mother needed her back home. It was decades before a divorce was granted. Meanwhile, starved for love, she took lovers and had children she needed to hide. She remained beautiful and charming into old age. She was a beloved aunt to the future Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and both grieved her death.

Julie’s resting place has disappeared, but thanks to this book, her story lives on to break hearts.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.

As someone who has been obsessed with the Romanovs since the age of 12, I can say that I had never heard of Julie but now that I know of her, I would love to learn more. The way things have changed over time but yet seem frighteningly familiar is the biggest takeaway from this book that I will remember.

A well written look at a somewhat obscure member of the sprawling royal families of Europe and Russia. Julie of Saxe -Coburg was married off as a teen to a cruel member of the Romanov family but ended up going her own way (and what a way it must have been). Regrettably. she did not leave a diary or letters which would have illuminated her and brought her to life so this is very much about everything that happened around her. You, like me, might have trouble keeping everyone straight (she's an aunt of Queen Victoria btw) but I spent a bit of time googling to help my understanding. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's a fascinating read for those interested in the period.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. This was an interesting read about Julia’s life. I think you didn’t hear much about the royals back then once they weren’t in the spotlight. I wonder how much different her life would’ve been if she hadn’t married Konstantine and was thrust into the public eye.

The mention of "Coburg" reminds me of the PBS "Masterpiece" series on Queen Victoria. That's where most of my knowledge of Prince Albert's family was gained. Helen Rappaport gives so much more insight of this German privileged family.

I enjoyed the book and learning more about the marriage connections to the Romanov family - specifically, Grand Duke Constantine and Julie of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha house. The book is well organized to share critical points of history - political, cultural, and the tragic interpersonal experience between these marriage partners. It is the antithesis of the Queen Victoria and Prince Albert love story.

The ARC copy indicates there will be an illustration of the family tree for both the Romanovs and the Coburgs. This will be very helpful to frame the connections and time periods of so many aristocracy. Unless you are a serious royalist student, you need a scorecard to keep track of everyone!

A sincere thank you to St Martin Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read the advance copy of this publication. I'm looking forward to recommending it to others as well as reading Helen Rappaport's previous publications.

Oh, this book was a fascinating read! I knew Catherine the Great had 2 grandsons whom she raised but didn't know much else. Julie, who was only 14 was basically sold into marriage by her ambitious family who relished the chance to be connected to the Russian royalty family. To achieve this they married naive, innocent Julie to a sadistic brute - who wasn't in the least bit in marrying her or anyone else. He wanted to permanently marry the military. Rather than being cowed into submission she took control of life, left him , defied her family, his family and society and demanded a divorce.
Just like all Helen Rappaport's (she's one of my favorite history writers) books this is well researched and well written. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Russian History and / or strong willed women.

Thank you NetGallery & Goodreads for this complimentary copy in return for an honest review