A review by abookishtype
The Imperial Wife by Irina Reyn

3.0

I supposed that most women will come off the worse when compared to Catherine the Great, as Irina Reyn’s novel The Imperial Wife does by telling the empress’s story alongside the story of a young art specialist in modern New York. To be fair, Tanya Kagan Vandermotter holds her own for much of the novel. I genuinely thought that I was reading twin tales of women realizing their own power over their destinies. Catherine obviously did. Tanya, however, makes a decision at the very end of the book that infuriated me. The ending of this novel made me so angry that I’ve needed almost an entire day before I felt like I could write this post. In an effort to not spoil this book to other readers who may have a different opinion of Tanya’s actions, all I will say about the ending is that I think it undercuts her entire plotline...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.