Enchantments

FromKathryn Harrison, one of America's most admired literary voices, comes agorgeously written, enthralling novel set in the final days of Russia's RomanovEmpire.

St.Petersburg, 1917. After Rasputin's body is pulled from the icy waters of theNeva River, his eighteen-year-old daughter, Masha, is sent to live at theimperial palace with Tsar Nikolay and his family-including the headstrongPrince Alyosha. Desperately hoping that Masha has inherited Rasputin'smiraculous healing powers, Tsarina Alexandra asks her to tend to Aloysha, whosuffers from hemophilia, a blood disease that keeps the boy confined to hissickbed, lest a simple scrape or bump prove fatal.

Twomonths after Masha arrives at the palace, the tsar is forced to abdicate, andBolsheviks place the royal family under house arrest. As Russia descends intocivil war, Masha and Alyosha grieve the loss of their former lives, findingsolace in each other's company. To escape the confinement of the palace, theytell stories-some embellished and some entirely imagined-about Nikolay andAlexandra's courtship, Rasputin's many exploits, and the wild and wonderfulcountry on the brink of an irrevocable transformation. In the worlds of theirimagination, the weak become strong, legend becomes fact, and a future thatwill never come to pass feels close at hand.

Mesmerizing,haunting, and told in Kathryn Harrison's signature crystalline prose, Enchantmentsis a love story about two people who come together as everything around them isfalling apart.

Kathryn Harrisonis the author of the memoirs The Kiss and The Mother Knot. Shehas also written the novels Envy, The Seal Wife, The Binding Chair, Poison,Exposure, and Thicker Than Water; a travel memoir, The Road toSantiago; a biography, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux; and a collection ofessays, Seeking Rapture. She lives in New York with her husband, thenovelist Colin Harrison, and their children.