If I said Anastasia what would you think? Would visions of snow and escape fill your heads? Would you hum the Anastasia Waltz under your breath. Would you remember an over the top 1980s mini-series (gotta love those 1980s mini-series) with Gold Digger Hall of Famer Amy Irving (the former Mrs Spielberg…girl got PAID! go Amy go!) as Anya/Anna/Anastasia?

Or are you the reasonable person who pauses the streaming video on their iPad, rolls their eyes and carefully explains to the lesser mind that “DNA proved all the Imperial was killed/found now go back to your Judge Judy and Dunkee Cup”. For some reason Blacklight is all “hey! What’s wrong with Judge Judy and Dunkee Cup?”. Whatever.

Nerd or believer it still doesn’t change the fact that for over sixty years a woman with severe problems claimed that she was the only survivor of that long ago night. And people believed her believed her. Heck people even believed her when she was living in a hoarder house of horrors. Frances Welch has done an excellent job of telling the story of Anna Anderson. The two biggest faults? The pictures are tiny and the covers are too close together. Oh and it was beyond hard to drag my attention away from the story back to work when my break was over. And that’s the worst I can say.

If any book cries out for an update it’s this one. And I mean update in a good way. Just slam in an extra chapter or two about the revelations since 2007 and you can close the book on Anna Anderson (SPOILER: bish ain’t no Romanov, bish be crazeee ladeee). Can we get Frances Welch and her publishers to make this happen? Pretty please?