Angus Thomson

Dagmar Angus Thomson

Born to obscure and impoverished aristocracy in Denmark, the adolescent Dagmar found herself catapulted first into war-torn royalty and then into a romance with the heir to Czarist Russia, the most opulent and autocratic court in the world. Tragedy destroyed her dreams of love but she came under pressure to marry the new heir and she entered a world of unmeasured wealth, cruelty, betrayal, subversion and danger. She embraced her growing family in a world of luxury, part of a fractious court that uncaringly oppressed and exploited millions until dissent developed into fury, sowing the seeds of revolution. Assassins depleted the ranks of this elite, mob violence began to ravage the streets and failure in foreign wars left the Romanovs exposed. A pistol shot in Sarajevo detonated world war and the slaughter of multitudes, while revolution erupted throughout Russia. Dagmar kept faith as the culture she had come to epitomise disintegrated, the empire she had thought would last for ever became wasteland, and her dynasty ended in a bloodbath. In childhood she had learned stories of fortitude in the face of adversity; she needed those lessons now. From the author of Naked Beneath the Ermine, Dagmar, Last of the Olympians spins a breath-taking tale out of real history that proves once and for all that the fact is always more exciting than the fiction. An intriguing retelling of one of the biggest turning points in Russian history, Dagmar's journey is brought to life in stunning fashion in the pages of Angus Thomson's new and daring historical novel. Fuelled on a conscious desire for the truth, Dagmar, Last of the Olympians provides a fantastical record of one of the 20th Century's most cataclysmic and important events.