Candace Fleming: Hi. This is Candace Fleming, and I'm the author of The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia. I'm going to tell you a bit about how I came to write this book, and then I'll share an excerpt with you.

One summer afternoon, when I was 13, I pulled a fat biography off my mother's bookshelf titled Nicholas and Alexandra. I didn't know it then, but it's the classic account of the fall of the Romanov family. It was pretty dense history, but I loved it. The Romanovs intrigued me; they beguiled me, and that fascination spilled over into my adult years. But while I read everything I could get my hands on about the Romanovs, I never considered writing about them until a few years ago. That's when middle school students suddenly started asking me what I knew about the Czar's youngest daughter. They'd seen the Disney animated movie Anastasia, and understood it was based on a kernel of truth. But what was that kernel? They hoped I could tell them. Sadly within a fifteen-minute question and answer period, I really couldn't, not enough anyway. And so I began to conceive of a book. The Family Romanov is my answer to those middle schoolers's questions.

Chapter Three: "A Small Family Circle." Four Little Romanovs.

By 1903, four little girls romped in the nursery. Seven-year-old Olga and six-year-old Tatiana shared one of the bedrooms, and were called "the Big Pair" by their parents. Four-year-old Marie and two-year-old Anastasia shared another of the bedrooms, and were called "the Little Pair."

By the look of their bedrooms, no one would have guessed their father was the richest ruler in the world. Fitted out with a hodge-podge of furniture that had been found around the palace, the rooms were a clutter of overstuffed chairs and mismatched tables. And unlike many of the royal cousins, who slumbered on silky-soft beds, all four of the girls slept on narrow, folding army cots. This was a Romanov family tradition meant to teach self-discipline and guard against self-indulgence. Each cot was covered with a blue satin comforter monogrammed with its owner's initials, and was so light that even little Anastasia could move it easily around. And she did. In the summer, along with her sisters, she dragged her cot closer to the open windows. In the winter, she moved it closer to the furnace grate. And at Christmastime, she hauled it into the playroom, where every year one of the family's six holiday trees was set up. There, under the sparkling ornaments, the sisters drifted contentedly off to sleep.