On the night of July 16, 1918, the Romanov royal family was awakened around 2:00 am, told to dress, and led down into a half-basement room at the back of the house where they were imprisoned. There they were executed by Bolshevik soldiers who feared that the family would soon be rescued by monarchists with the White Russian army.

Many have wondered for a long time what happened to Princess Anastasia and her brother Prince Alexei, children of Czar Nicholas II of Russia who was murdered along with his wife and at least three of their five children on July 17, 1918. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the Romanovs and the Fall of Imperial Russia is an excellent 1967 biography of the last royal family of Russia by historian Robert K. Massie, but it doesn’t deal with the mystery of the disappearance of two of the Czar’s children, possibly Anastasia and Alexei. From time to time impostors have shown up claiming to be Princess Anastasia or Prince Alexei. The bodies of the royal family were exhumed in 1998, and it was then that it was discovered that two of the children’s bodies were indeed missing.

However two more bodies were discovered in 2007. DNA tests proved that these were the bodies of Prince Alexei and Princess Maria. If you’d like to read more about the Romanovs (wrapped in a fictional speculation), check out these books.

Children’s Books:
Anastasia’s Album by Hugh Brewster. Reviewed at The Book Nosher.

Young Adult Fiction:
The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller. Reviewed at The Fourth Musketeer.
Anastasia’s Secret by Susanne Dunlop. Bloomsbury, 2010. Reviewed at The Fourth Musketeer.
Anastasia: The Last Grand Duchess by Carolyn Meyer. (Royal Diaries series) Scholastic, 2000.
The Curse of the Romanovs by Staton Rabin Margaret K. McElderry, 2007. This one’s mostly about Alexei, the Romanov brother,and about Rasputin, and it combines science fiction, horror, and teen historical fiction into a rather odd adventure story. Reviewed at Book Dweeb.
Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble. Reviewed at Whimpulsive.

Adult Fiction:
The Tsarina’s Daughter by Carolly Erickson. Reviewed at S. Krishna’s Books.
The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander. The kitchen servant boy tells the story of the downfall of the Romanov family from his point of view.
The Romanov Bride by Robert Alexander. A novel about the Russian Revolution and Grand Duchess Elisavayeta Feodorovna Romanov, wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia. Reviewed at Life and Times of a New Yorker.
Oksana by Susan May Warren and Susan K. Downs. Reviewed at The Friendly Book Nook.