The Genius

When the last candle gutters out, a stranger appears beside Princess Sophia’s ikon, holding the hand of a child. “I come to answer your prayer,” she says—and then, from the hall, comes word that Sophia’s husband is on his way upstairs.

In Russia under Czar Nicholas I, Sophia has endured sixteen years in a loveless marriage to Michael Gregoriev, a feared official whose power cannot win him the welcome he craves. The child she once begged heaven for is now an eleven-year-old boy, and the strange vision that promised him has become a private source of hope. But on New Year’s night in 1852, Michael intends to force open Moscow society’s doors with a grand ball at the Gregoriev palace. The city knows the family’s grim reputation; will its guests come—and what will Sophia find waiting behind those doors?

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