I started writing The Last Grand Duchess in 2019, shortly following the publication of The Woman Before Wallis, but it had existed in my head, in one form or another, for many, many years before I put pen to paper. Naturally, that means my list of acknowledgments could span the length of a city block, but after writing the behemoth that was my author’s note I’ll do my best to keep it short.
First and foremost to my agent, Kevan Lyon, and my editor, April Osborn, for believing in this novel and giving me the time, space, guidance, and confidence to write it. I couldn’t ask for better partners to help me reach my potential as an author.
To my team at MIRA and HarperCollins—Heather Conner, Nicole Brebner, Randy Chan, Ashley MacDonald, Lindsey Reeder, Lia Ferrone, Rebecca Silver, Elita Sidiropoulou, Kathleen Oudit, my authenticity readers, and everyone else at HarperCollins who have been such supporters of my books: thank you for your hard work and dedication to telling great stories.
I am heavily indebted to Bob Atchison’s Alexander Palace Time Machine, which provided me with invaluable access to palace floor plans and photos, eyewitness accounts of the revolution, and so much more. It is an endlessly fascinating resource into the lives of Nicholas II and his family and is well worth an afternoon of browsing. My thanks as well to Helen Azar for translating the private diaries of the Romanov family, the University of Toronto Libraries, and all of the historians referenced in my bibliography for providing the historical foundations to this book.
I wrote this book during the 2020 pandemic, which threw off my long-awaited plans to travel to Russia’s grand palaces. As a result, I could not have brought this book to life without the generosity of people who posted their travel videos of Alexander Palace, the Winter Palace, Ekaterinburg, and Tobolsk online. I hope that I’ve managed to capture some of the magic of Russia as shared through your travelogues.
My endless gratitude goes to my family for their support, encouragement and love—particularly my mom, Dana Turnbull, who typed out my handwritten edits to the manuscript over a frenzied nine-hour day that had been advertised to her as “a few hours’ work.” My thanks as well to Margie McCain, Derek Plaxton, Brenda Doig, Josh Nehme, Kate Atkinson, Louise Claire Johnson, Ben Ehrensperger, Mandy Bean, Natasha Campbell, Nastasia Nianiaris, Rachel Thorne, and Pierce Cassidy who—bless him—listened to me recount the entire saga of the Romanovs over a bottle of wine in Berlin in 2016.
Over the past two years, my network of author friends has become, bar none, the most wonderful and supportive group of colleagues. Kaia Alderson, Kristin Beck, Janie Chang, Chanel Cleeton, Natasha Lester, Jennifer Robson, Erika Robuck, Kate Quinn, Rachel McMillan, Louise Claire Johnson, and so many others—thank you for your words of wisdom and support. To the booksellers who’ve shared my work with their community of readers, and to everyone who’s picked up The Last Grand Duchess or The Woman Before Wallis: thank you for reading. It means the world.
Finally, my thanks to Olga, whose remarkable life was cut far too short.