Marie was the granddaughter of Czar Alexander II, the daughter of Grand Duke Paul, and the cousin of Tsar Nicholas. Her brother, Prince Dmitri, was one of the plotters against Rasputin. He was exiled for that, to the Persian frontier, which saved his life when the roundup of the Imperial family began. These are the memoirs of her childhood, a glittering version of solitary confinement, and young adult life. Her father was banished for marrying without the Czar's permission, which left Marie and her brother to be brought up by her uncle, the military governor of Moscow. After her uncle's assassination in 1905, her aunt arranged a marriage with a Swedish prince whom Marie saw a few times before the wedding. The marriage was disastrous, and a divorce was arranged, quickly and quietly. Marie's young son stayed in Sweden. Charity was an acceptable occupation for the women of the aristocracy, but Marie became a qualified nurse and spent much of the early part of WWI in field hospitals. The last part of the book contains her account of the final tense days of the Romanovs, her second marriage, and her escape through the Ukraine.