The Family Romanov vs The Living

Team Spruce Avenue was tasked with choosing between these two novels. Ultimately we've chosen to advance The Living.

I'm sure this post will be lacking all the jazziness of earlier posts as we're generally in agreement with the rest of you. Neither novel is without problems and in the end Living might have greater draw to reluctant readers and the mass of story-lines comes together well in the end. We didn't love that The Living seemed to have been written with the obligation of a sequel and that the plot was often predictable.

The Family Romanov continues down the line of historical novels. This time focusing on Communist Russia. The story was interesting but most students would be unaware for this history and unlikely to grab this novel off the shelf.