Michael and Natasha

A beautiful Russian divorcee creates a scandal by marrying a dashing but ineffectual nobleman. Passion, despair, murder and, finally, war converge to ravage Mother Russia and doom the love affair. The elements of a classic Russian novel are put into play in this recounting of the marriage of Nathalie Brasova and Michael Aleksandrovich, the man who became the last emperor of czarist Russia--as Michael II, he technically ruled for part of one day after his brother Nicholas II abdicated in 1917. Their story is pieced together mostly through contemporary love letters and family correspondence, which show the pair to be heroically romantic and consistently neurotic. When Michael writes, ""It isn't possible to love more than we love each other,"" Natasha tortures him with a never-ending stream of insecurities: ""I... was always content with the crumbs which you gave me of your time and splendour."" The Romanov family vehemently opposed Michael's marriage to a nonroyal and was bent on making life miserable for the couple. This thoroughly researched work contains enough intimate details to satisfy the romantic, enough hard facts to please the casual historian. The authors, a husband and wife, are British freelance journalists. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Nov.)