A sweeping romantic epic about the choice between love and independence After the death of her spendthrift father, the Russian countess Alexandra Korvin is left penniless and alone in his glittering St. Petersburg palace. With no hope of escaping poverty unless she weds a prosperous nobleman, the beautiful and intelligent Alexandra travels from the aristocracy's dazzling balls to the city's opium dens, from magnificent country houses to the poorest of peasant huts, in her quest for a spouse. As her prospects dwindle away, Alexandra makes a radical and risky move, disguising herself as a man and joining the army. There she finds freedom from the confines of femininity and the chance to discover more about the nature of men. However, her newfound independence is threatened when she finds herself in the presence of Captain Ulyanov, a rakish, disreputable army captain. Under his watchful eye, Alexandra must do everything she can to conceal her identity. Will she be able to hold on to the liberties she has experienced while disguised as a man, or will she give in to her romantic impulses and be forced to return to the confining life of a woman? Scrupski] captures nineteenth-century Saint Petersburg's complexities in exquisite and emotionally precise detail. Alexandra glitters like a snowy Winter Palace dream on the Neva. --John Faunce, author of Lucrezia Borgia Ruslan is an elegantly written novel, vividly detailed, and interwoven with wonderful, human characters who leap off the page. Readers of historical fiction will love this captivating story. I know I couldn't put it down --Diane Haeger, author of My Dearest Cecilia, The Secret Wife of King George IV, and the forthcoming The Ruby Rin