Royal Intrigue // Curse Not the King — Evelyn Anthony

The tale of the treacherous battle for the throne between Catherine the Great and her son Paul, set against the backdrop of late-eighteenth-century Russia

The year is 1773. Catherine the Great has been in power for a decade. Since the assassination of her husband, Peter III, in a coup d'état, she has been empress of all the Russias. She rules with enlightenment and grace, driven by ambition and her secret dream to free Russia's millions of serfs. Tonight she is celebrating the wedding of her son Paul Petrovitch. He was nine -- and the rightful heir to the throne -- when Peter died and Catherine seized power. Her son has neither forgotten nor forgiven, and hatred for his mother -- and his father's murderer -- festers in his heart. He doesn't know that Catherine committed a terrible crime to safeguard his liberty and his life. She prays that marriage will be the solution to his violent rages and the dangerous enmity between them.

These chronicles the struggle for dominance between mother and son. Notorious for her love affairs, Catherine ruled an empire shadowed by treachery, intrigue, and deadly betrayals. But she was never able to make peace with Paul, who would go on to become czar, finally attaining his long-awaited revenge, and whose own son Alexander would reign after him.

This is the 2nd book in the Romanov Trilogy, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.