Sherry D. Ficklin is a full time writer from Colorado where she lives with her husband, four kids, two dogs, and a fluctuating number of chickens and house guests. A former military brat, she loves to travel and meet new people. She can often be found browsing her local bookstore with a large white hot chocolate in one hand and a towering stack of books in the other. That is, unless she’s on deadline at which time she, like the Loch Ness monster, is only seen in blurry photographs.
Queen of Someday by Sherry D. Ficklin
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Queen of Someday is the first book in the Stolen Empire series by Sherry Ficklin. I was looking forward to reading this book because, while it is definitely fiction, it ties in Russian history and you all know how much I love historical fiction. I love how Ficklin took the baseline of what happened and really made up a story about what she thought could have happened with Catherine the Great. I love when authors do this.
Sophie is a princess but comes from a family that is in some financial trouble when the story opens. Because of this, her mother is working hard to marry her off and when we are first introduced to her, Sophie and her mother are on their way to the Russian Court to see if she is fit to marry Empress Elizabeth’s nephew Peter.
I liked Sophie – she is smart and she quickly realizes who she can trust and who she can’t at court. She isn’t put in a good situation but she realizes she doesn’t have much say in it so she is determined to make it work. Not everything goes her way in this story and to be perfectly honest, there were times where if I were in her shoes I would have probably completely broken down. As a young girl, she is definitely tested but she is strong and she realizes what she has to do to survive and make things work for herself and protect her family.
As Sophie begins to navigate Russian Court, she starts to learn more about who Peter really is and doesn’t really like what she sees. She also begins to grow closer to Alexander, one of Peter’s friends and they soon realize that despite the expectations, they have fallen in love. I don’t want to give anything away around this plot line because this is where things got very interesting. Let me just say that Alexander is definitely swoony and they are both in a tough situation. Needless to say, when the Empress finds out what is going on, it isn’t pretty and things do not go well.
One of the people who quickly becomes a trusted advisor and friend to Sophie is Sergei Salkov who serves on the Empress’s Imperial Court. I have to admit, where their stories ended up together was unexpected but it all tied together and again, Sophie used her brains to come up with a solution that would help her survive. I liked Sergei and if he hadn’t been there for Sophie, I’m not really sure how things would have ended up for her. I also don’t believe that she would have made it through her time in court without him.
This was my first read by Sherry Ficklin and I definitely enjoyed it. It was one of those stories where I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen next and I loved that about this. I am definitely interested to see where Ficklin goes with the next book of this series and will check it out when the next book hits the shelves.
Thank you to Netgalley and Clean Teen Publishing for the review copy!
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