These are the letters/postcards between Empress Alexandra (born a Princess of Hesse) and her brother Grand Duke Ernest Ludwig "Ernie" of Hesse and by Rhine (and also his wife Onor). The correspondence begins in 1878 and it ends with the last known correspondence between the Empress and her sister-in-law in 1918. The letters don't describe anything of the political situation the Empress found herself faced with during her life in Russia. It's all family news and health.

One of the things that bothered me most was the way the book was laid out. The letters of Alexandra to her sister-in-law, Grand Duchess Eleonore, are presented in their original German with English translations to be found in one of the appendices. It would've been much more helpful had these translations actually followed the original German letter. It became something of a nuisance to have to flip back and forth.

One of the good things of the book is the amount of footnotes that help us identify family members called by nicknames and also help us to put historical events into perspective.

A good book to own if you are a die-hard fan of Empress Alexandra, as it is mostly her letters that survive. Ernie's letters to her were destroyed when the Empress burnt most of her correspondence. ( )