Of late, many stories have featured the World Wars across Europe, and it can be overlooked that during World War 1, the involvement of Russian forces was a major cause of the Russian Revolution of 1917. THE COUNTESS OF THE REVOLUTION reveals what life was like in Petrograd.   On the eve of revolution, Countess Sophia Orlova and her husband, Dmitry, are a young married couple, happy and wealthy. But in Russia, like any feudal state, there were only the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor. The soldiers grew tired of war and families grew hungry. Labour movements got organised and educated young men spread ideas. Now, the Count and Countess hear shots fired, glass breaking, screams and drunken songs. Nobody comes to stop the rioters or the casual looting. Many families have already fled, but for the unrealistically brave Dmitry, it’s too late to pack and get the carriage on the road.    Sophia and Dmitry, with their loyal Nanny, an elderly servant, are marched to the cellar at gunpoint. After a few days, they are released and might be killed, but for the intervention of Nikolai, a young Bolshevik who is opposed to the Tsarist regime, of which his family was a part. Sophia hasn’t met him, but he is Dmitry’s missing brother.   Sophia had been doing war nursing in a nearby hospital and wanted to show that she was useful, not just decorative. She establishes an improvised hospital in her stripped home for anyone injured in the street chaos. People like her have been shot on sight so the rebels could steal their goods. Co-operation is all that’s left, because the Tsar has fled.   We have seen similar stories play out across the Middle East during the past couple of decades. The wealthy hoard art, jewels, fine homes, and think revolution can’t happen to them. But by now, the people on the street know what they can do. In 1917, the main example was the French Revolution, and the Trans-Siberian Railway was just finished in 1916. Ideas spread in its wake, but most people still travelled with horses. Sophia shows us more of her changing country, including the Caucasus, along with her utterly changed life.    Lana Kortchik now lives in Australia, but she grew up in the Siberian town of Tomsk and the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, so she is well placed to describe the events in THE COUNTESS OF THE REVOLUTION. While this is a romance story, anyone who enjoys detailed historical fiction will learn a lot.