This book was pretty good, but one thing it is not is Juvenile fiction: sex, murder, adultery,orgy, i don't want to expose my young adult to any of that. Thankfully it wasn't too graphic, though the description of the Tsar's sons hemophilia was more than enough to make me queasy and put the book down more than once.returnreturnThe first part is told like a fairy tale, I'm usually not too big on symbolism, to the point I argued with my hush school English teacher that it didn't exist. Regardless it's quite clear the bear is the Russian people and vlad and Leo are Trotsky and Lenin.returnreturnI almost thought that part was actually more interesting than the actual historical fiction part with English author Arthur Ransom and his Russian mistress. I was surprised that Ransom returned to England to be with his daughter for a time after the fairy tale told of the foreigner with the briefcase having Russian air in his lungs for the rest of his life.returnreturnI still don't understand why he wanted to leave his wife Ivy, and I couldn't imagine my wife making my life so miserable that I would be willing to live thousands of miles from my daughter.returnreturnAll in all it was a nice quick read before bed a few nights and I would be willing to pick up a couple of the real Ransom's books.returnreturnI was disappointed in how little of the actual October revolution there was in almost 300 pages.