My wife and I don’t read many of the same books. Even our Bible study and devotional books are different. That’s one of the reasons our home library is so large. I’m trying to pay more attention to what she’s reading (to be a dutiful husband) and at least consider reading books she recommends to me. One of those was Imperial Highness by Evelyn Anthony.

This historical novel, first published in 1983, is closer to a biography than a novel; yet it meets the technical definition of a novel. It’s about Princess Catherine, of a somewhat lesser German principality, who at age 16 married the future tzar of Russia. It was an unhappy marriage, as the tsarevitch was hard to get along with and the two teenagers were ill-suited for each other.

Anthony paints a very unhappy picture of Catherine’s life. Both partners found love in the arms of others and rarely saw each other except at official court functions. Spoiler alert: Catherine does a better job of winning public opinion to her and winds up as empress, deposing her husband after his mother’s death.

This is a good, relatively short read. It’s difficult for me to pigeonhole it as to genre. Consider it biography masquerading as historical fiction. It’s worth reading if you like that kind of book.

I give it 4-stars. I’ll never read it again, but I might do some other research on Catherine. It’s not a keeper, however, and I rise from my office chair right now to put it in the donation box.