The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire

Written by Linda Lafferty

Narrated by Kathleen Gati

In a sweeping story straight out of Russian history, Tsar Alexander I and a courageous girl named Nadezhda Durova join forces against Napoleon.

It’s 1803, and an adolescent Nadya is determined not to follow in her overbearing Ukrainian mother’s footsteps. She’s a horsewoman, not a housewife. When Tsar Paul is assassinated in St. Petersburg and a reluctant and naive Alexander is crowned emperor, Nadya runs away from home and joins the Russian cavalry in the war against Napoleon. Disguised as a boy and riding her spirited stallion, Alcides, Nadya rises in the ranks, even as her father begs the tsar to find his daughter and send her home.

Both Nadya and Alexander defy expectations—she as a heroic fighter and he as a spiritual seeker—while the battles of Austerlitz, Friedland, Borodino, and Smolensk rage on.

In a captivating tale that brings Durova’s memoirs to life, from bloody battlefields to glittering palaces, two rebels dare to break free of their expected roles and discover themselves in the process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Sep 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781522640028

Linda Lafferty

Linda Lafferty is the author of The Bloodletter’s Daughter, House of Bathory, Light in the Shadows, The Girl Who Fought Napoleon, and the Colorado Book Award winners The Drowning Guard and The Shepherdess of Siena. Her books have been translated into ten languages. She holds a doctorate in bilingual special education and taught in Spain for three years. Lafferty is also an avid equestrian and horse lover.

Reviews for The Girl Who Fought Napoleon

[brokenteepee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have to admit that when I took this book to review I had no idea it was based on a real person. Nadezhda Durova lived and did ride in the cavalry. She wrote her memoirs and this book uses them to create a richer, fictional tale about a woman who defied the normal path set out for women of her time.There is so much possibility here for an amazing novel. Heck the truth is almost too amazing to believe. But the structure of the book makes it is very hard to get into from the start. Like an awful lot of books lately it uses the back and forth in time and alternate chapter/voice method for telling the tale but the chapter titles don’t give you much more than a date. You have to figure out who is narrating the chapter with the reading of it. In the early chapters this proved, at times, challenging. It’s also just getting old as a conceit. Seriously people – just tell your stories.Nadya is a complicated character and like most of that type there are times you love her and times you hate her. She is very well developed and she really drives the story. The chapters where she is not telling the story are not as vibrant. They are not in a single voice as her story is and perhaps that is why.I did enjoy the book; I always love learning about fascinating women in history and Nadya sure qualifies on that count. A woman who runs away from home to ride in the cavalry is a rare woman indeed. Russian history is a particular interest of mine as well mostly due to a wonderful professor in college. He brought the country alive while teaching. I think the book is certainly worth reading despite it’s construction flaws. Nadya is a woman who deserves her attention.

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel is a fictionalised account of a real historical Ukrainian girl, Natasha Durova, who fought disguised as a man (Alexandrov) in Tsar Alexander's army fighting against Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. Natasha grows to love the military life from a very young age as her father tours the Empire on his duties and later runs away from home to join the army. The bulk of this novel is actually about Tsar Alexander as he grows up, his relationship with his grandmother Catherine the Great and his father, the mad Emperor Paul. Durova/Alexandrov disappears for large portions of the novel and sometimes came across to me as a bit of an afterthought. While this was a good read, I thought it lacked the beauty and atmosphere of Lafferty's other novel, I've read, the Shepherdess of Siena. I have several more of hers, though, which I will certainly look forward to.

[ltl1red · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

exceptional historian fiction. the main character is based on a real life biography of this young girl and her life during the tone of the Czar and Napoleon. It tells you what happened and what might of happened..very good read for those that like historical fiction.

[whitreidtan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have long been fascinated with Russia. I took two years of Russian in high school (which, so many years later, leaves me capable of the names of a couple of animals, fruits, please, thank-you, "My name is...," and the like). I took a "Russian-Soviet Life" class in high school and a "Russia to 1900" class in college. I have read many of the Russian greats and a few of the banned Soviets as well. So this novel of the Russian Empire, set in the waning years of Catherine the Great, her son Paul I, and grandson Alexander I's rules, was something I knew would sustain my interest. Finding out that the premise of a girl who fled her home and joined the Russian cavalry to fight Napoleon was based on a true story made it all that much more appealing.Nadezhda Durova is born to a Russian army officer and his Ukrainian wife. A disappointment to her mother, she grows up wild and indulged while her family follows the drum. When he father finally retires, she is suddenly faced with her mother's strictures and ideas of how a proper lady comports herself. Chafing under this contained life, Nadezhda runs away in the middle of the night on her magnificent steed, Alcides. Dressed as a Cossack, she conspires to join the army in the guise of a young boy named Aleksandr. Throughout the years, she serves with honor and bravery, eventually taking part in the horrific Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon. As Nadezhda grows up and joins the army, the young Grand Duke Alexander is also growing up in St. Petersburg in his grandmother Catherine the Great's household. He is groomed to become Tsar, witness to and victim of the great animosity between his father and his grandmother. Political machinations mold and form his adolescence and young adulthood as he is thrust into a position he never desired. Nadezhda escapes the life that society would impress on her but the Tsar cannot so easily run away from his responsibilities.The novel is told from Nadezhda's first person perspective and third person limited from Alexander I's with a few short bits focused on Napoleon. Generally the shifts occur from chapter to chapter but occasionally, and slightly confusingly, they happen within a chapter as well. The narrative is not a straight chronology either, at least in the beginning when the reader needs to pay close attention to the date headings on the chapters to figure out where in history the story is, as well as which character is dominating the story line. Although the two major story lines start off quite far apart, they do eventually cross over each other in a somewhat surprising way. Despite their intersection, they still generally felt like two different novels rather than a completely integrated whole. The Russian history was well researched and seeing Alexander I's struggles with his position, his guilt over his father's death, and his almost platonic relationship with his own wife was interesting indeed. Nadezhda's story, unknown as it seems to be here in the West, was even more interesting. Her rebellion against society and the narrow life that she could expect to lead as a woman was completely understandable and her accounts of war and the suffering of the troops was brutal. The story was generally engaging with one exception: the unexpected revelation at the end of the novel comes out of the blue and although it apparently follows the very late revelation in the real Nadezhda Durova's memoir, it is confusing and disruptive for the reader. Aside from that though, anyone interested in the life of a woman who fashions herself as she wants to be or in the years of the Romanov dynasty that this encompasses will certainly enjoy this expansive novel.

[bookscookslooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have to admit that when I took this book to review I had no idea it was based on a real person. Nadezhda Durova lived and did ride in the cavalry. She wrote her memoirs and this book uses them to create a richer, fictional tale about a woman who defied the normal path set out for women of her time.There is so much possibility here for an amazing novel. Heck the truth is almost too amazing to believe. But the structure of the book makes it is very hard to get into from the start. Like an awful lot of books lately it uses the back and forth in time and alternate chapter/voice method for telling the tale but the chapter titles don’t give you much more than a date. You have to figure out who is narrating the chapter with the reading of it. In the early chapters this proved, at times, challenging. It’s also just getting old as a conceit. Seriously people – just tell your stories.Nadya is a complicated character and like most of that type there are times you love her and times you hate her. She is very well developed and she really drives the story. The chapters where she is not telling the story are not as vibrant. They are not in a single voice as her story is and perhaps that is why.I did enjoy the book; I always love learning about fascinating women in history and Nadya sure qualifies on that count. A woman who runs away from home to ride in the cavalry is a rare woman indeed. Russian history is a particular interest of mine as well mostly due to a wonderful professor in college. He brought the country alive while teaching. I think the book is certainly worth reading despite it’s construction flaws. Nadya is a woman who deserves her attention.