The Romanov Impostor by Jennifer Laam: Book Review

Set in 1922 Los Angeles, The Romanov Impostor portrays a “what if” story. What if Anastasia Romanov and her sisters survived? In this alternate history, Anastasia has remade herself as Ana Marlowe and now works for a movie studio reading scripts, or scenarios as they were then called. One day, a script telling Ana’s own secret history comes across her desk. The woman who wrote this script, who claims to be Anastasia, is, of course, an impostor, but the story is perfect for a movie. It could make Ana’s career and save the struggling studio where she works. But Ana is always fearful that the Bolsheviks will realize she is alive and assassinate her. Would it endanger her and her sisters if this movie were made? What will it feel like to help this impostor? Can she hide her secret?

Immersion in the Period

The story Laam weaves from these elements is psychologically intriguing and lots of fun. Laam captures the feel of the silent movies, the “flickers,” with title cards and scene descriptions interspersed between the chapters. Ana has adopted American Hollywood jargon, which, along with period appropriate language of the other characters, immerses the reader in this world. To draw the reader forward there’s a Hollywood romance, the intrigue of Ana’s secret, and the tension of the Romanov impostor’s erratic presence on the movie set.

Entertaining Writing

Laam’s lively depiction of setting and character are shown in chapter one in the introduction of Ana’s good friend and trusted sidekick, Lorna: “Lorna’s friendly, high-pitched voice had a nasal undertone. She had come from a place called Nebraska . . . Lorna sported a curly blonde bob to die for, much more luxurious than Ana’s stick-straight hair. And she always wore red lipstick. In other words, she came into work looking as close to the cat’s meow as an office assistant could without being labeled a tart behind her back.” The Romanov Impostor is an entertaining deep dive into 1920’s Hollywood with the clever twist of Anastasia’s secret life.

Purchasing a copy of The Romanov Impostor and Further Reading

If you’d like to order The Romanov Impostor on Amazon. (affiliate link)

To read more about the author or Anastasia and her sisters, you can go to Jennifer Laam’s website.

To read about another novel set in 1920’s Hollywood, you can read my review of Donis Casey’s The Wrong Girl.