A review by nerfherder86
Gone by Nightfall by Dee Garretson

5.0

An excellent romantic historical fiction novel set during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Eighteen-year-old Charlotte lives on a large estate outside Petrograd, with her Russian retired general father and her many siblings and stepsiblings (a complicated situation as her American mother, now dead for a year, had three marriages, as did her Russian stepfather!). When Dmitri, a new tutor, arrives to teach her brothers, Charlotte is at first suspicious that the young man might be spying on them for the Russian secret police, as political tensions are rising and it is not safe to say anything against the czar's government; but he is very handsome and as she becomes friends with him she hopes her fears are not true... Trained as a nurse, Charlotte works at a hospital for women founded by her mother, where she must master the black market if she is going to be able to feed everyone. And she is friends with a progressive couple who run a theater where radicals often meet. As things get dicey with protests rising in the streets and the police getting bolder, Charlotte is swept up in the Revolution. Will Charlotte and her noble-born family be able to escape the violence?

I loved the romance of this story and the gradual increase in tension and suspense as things get progressively worse. All of the historical detail is terrific, you can tell the author did a lot of research (which she mentions in her author's note). A grand, epic tale, great for middle school and up. I read an advance reader's copy provided by the author.