Fabergé jewels, the mysterious Rasputin and a rare, priceless violin are dangerous temptations for a young woman struggling to survive and love in revolutionary Russia
St. Petersburg, 1911: Inna Feldman has fled the pogroms of the south to take refuge with distant relatives in Russia’s capital city. Welcomed into the flamboyant Leman family, she is apprenticed into their violin-making workshop.
With her good looks and talent, she feels instantly at home in their bohemian circle, but revolution is in the air, and as society begins to fracture, she is forced to choose between her heart and her head. She loves her brooding cousin, Yasha, but he is wild, destructive and devoted to revolution; Horace Wallick, an Englishman who works for Fabergé, is older and promises security and respectability. And, like many, she is drawn to the mysterious, charismatic figure who befriended her on the train and who is beginning to make a name for himself in the city: Rasputin.
As the revolution descends into anarchy and blood-letting, a commission to repair a priceless Stradivarius violin offers Inna a means ofescape. But which man will she choose to take with her? And is it already too late? Steeped in Vanora Bennett’s love and deep knowledge of Russia, Midnight in St. Petersburg is an extraordinary novel about music, politics and the toll that revolution exacts on the human heart.