The Winter Palace

Barbara, called Varvara in Russian, is a quick-witted young woman taken into the service of the Empress Elizabeth at the Russian court. Servants hardly register there, and that suits her. She watches, listens and learns what the court tries to hide.

Count Bestuzhev, the Chancellor and a spymaster, takes charge of her training. Under him Varvara picks up skills that range from lock picking to seduction, and she learns above all to keep quiet and wait for a chance to use what she knows.

The chance arrives with Sophie, a slender, playful teenage princess from Zerbst. She is meant to marry the Empress's nephew, but her ambitions are higher and more dangerous than anyone guesses, and she is shrewder than she looks. She will become Catherine the Great.

Sophie needs someone inside the palace who knows its traps, conspiracies and betrayals, and Varvara becomes her confidante. This historical novel follows Catherine's unlikely climb to absolute power through the eyes of the servant at her side. The court is glittering and cruel, and the telling is intimate, built on observation and intrigue.