The True Memoirs of Little K » (First Edition)

Adrienne Sharp trained at the prestigious Harkness Ballet and has been a Fiction Fellow at MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Squaw Valley Writers Conference. She is the author of White Swan, Black Swan and The Sleeping Beauty.

Ninety-nine years old, with a sharp memory for every jewel she owned and every conquest she made, Mathilde Kschessinska—prima ballerina assoluta of the long-vanished Russian Imperial Ballet—sits down to write her memoirs.

And what a life it has been. The greatest dancer of the age, her scything technique caught the eye—and heart—of one Nikolai Romanov when she was only seventeen years old. When Nikolai ascended the throne as czar and was forced to give up his mistress, she turned her gaze on his cousins, the grand dukes; despite betraying each man with the other, her loyalty to Niki never wavered. As the last czar presided over a fatally crumbling empire, her devotion to the imperial family was tested in ways she could never have foreseen.

In Adrienne Sharp’s richly imagined novel, we see the seething beginnings of revolution and the blind giddiness of a doomed court. Based on fact, The True Memoirs of Little K is historical fiction as it’s meant to be written: passionately eventful and alive with emotions that resonate today. It is a magnificent entertainment.

Publishers Weekly

Sharp impressively conjures the grand life of Mathilde Kschessinka, Russian prima ballerina and mistress of Czar Nicholas II, in her sweeping third novel (after The Sleeping Beauty). Narrated by Mathilde--"Little K" as she was affectionately known--the story follows her early life under her well-placed father's tutelage, and on through her determination, at 17, to catch Niki's eye, their affair, his breaking it off so he can marry his Alexandra, Little K's affairs with two grand dukes, Niki's return to father her son, the removal of his family from power, and her escape before the imperial family's slaughter. Sharp, a trained ballet dancer, gives the backstage escapades a lively spark and writes movingly of Russian dance. Though Mathilde is a bit narrow in terms of her icy ambition, her story is an unrelenting thrill ride and chockfull of the stuff that historical fiction buffs adore: larger than life characters, epic change, grand settings, and lusty plotting. (Nov.)