Reviews for Anna

The average rating for Anna based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-08-05 00:00:00 Krista Vitale I really enjoyed this. It's a proper old fashioned saga that sweeps you into another world, another era. When English governess Anne meets Russian Count Kirov it's a meeting of minds. She goes to work for him, and of course, falls in love with him. Despite him being married to the beautiful but bland Irina, Anna (as she's now called) and the Count share some swoonably tender moments, until family loyalties step in and Anna flees to start a new life... Set against the dramatic and dangerous backdrop of the Napoleonic wars, culminating in his invasion of Russia, this book has everything a saga needs: love, war, death, betrayal, heartache, hope and a cantankerous matriarch. The romance is gorgeous, the war is harrowing, and everything else in between transports you back to 1800s Russia, from tzars, diamonds and balls to peasants, wild mountains and a Tartar prince. I've already got the second in this trilogy Fleur on order; can't wait!

Review # 2 was written on 2009-10-20 00:00:00 John Cameron Anna is the first in a trilogy commonly referred to as The Kirov Saga and is the story of Anne Peters, an Englishwoman forced by circumstances after her father's death to take employment as a governess. Her latest position takes her to Paris in 1803, where she meets Count Nikolai Kirov, a Russian diplomat who was a friend of her father. Her employers take umbrage at this friendship and she leaves their employ and finds herself stranded in Paris, that is until Nikolai offers her a position in Russia as governess to his children in St. Petersburg. Once there, Anne (now called Anna Petrovna), settles in and comes to love the children, but she also secretly loves the very much married Nikolai - and could it be that he loves her as well? Unable to keep her passion for Nikolai hidden, Anne finally makes a break from the Kirovs and begins a new life in Moscow, but she soon finds that great wealth doesn't always buy happiness. Nikolai eventually returns from Paris and returns to Anna's life, although Napoleon's invasion of Russia definitely throws a kink into any happiness our pair of lovers might hope to find... This is one of those books that is too complicated to to put into summary and you don't want me to spoil it for you anyway. Anne's story takes her from St. Petersburg, to a nail-biting search for a lost child high in the Caucasus Mountains (oh, that Cossack prince of hers), to Napoleon's invasions of Moscow ending with a harrowing view of the French army's retreat from Russia as they search for Nikolai's run-away daughter. I really enjoyed how the author set her scenes, everything came to life and I felt like I was in another century (which is exactly where I want a book to take me to). Since Anne is a governess much of the first half of the book involves her day-to-day life and interactions with the Kirovs and their children, so if you need a heroine dodging silver bullets and leaping tall buildings with a single bound this might not be the book for you, but if you like your sagas big and fat with a heavy dose of soap opera I'd definitely consider giving this one a whirl. The final two books in the trilogy are Fleur and Emily and I've already placed my hold at the library for book #2. 4/5 stars.