In Written on the Wind by Elizabeth Camden, Natalia Blackstone has an unusual position for a woman in 1900. Her father owns a major bank in New York. Natalia rose through the ranks until she became one of his main analysts. Because her mother was Russian and Natalia speaks Russian fluently, she heads the analysis and funding for the Trans-Siberian Railway project.

She has communicated so often with the man in charge of the project, Count Dimitri Sokolov, that the two have become friends. Their correspondence veers into music, literature, and a number of other interests.

Lately, however, Natalia hasn’t heard from Dimitri. When she inquires about him, she is only told that he is no longer on the project.

Unknown to Natalia, Dimitri had been ordered to take part in an appalling crime. When he refused, he was arrested, stripped of his title and lands, and exiled to a Siberian penal colony. His only hope is to escape and tell the truth about what happened. But the incident will reflect poorly on the czar, so Dimitri must tread carefully. Without cash and contacts, he plans an impossible journey to get to Natalia, the only trustworthy person able to help him.

I very much enjoyed that the plot, setting, and characters were all much different than anything I have read before.

The only other book I have read from this author, The Rose of Winslow Street, had characters from Romania. With that and this book having Russian characters, I wondered if the author had a Russian heritage or a special interest in that region. The audiobook had an end note with details about the Trans-Siberian Railway, but nothing about the author personally.

Unfortunately, the narrator of the audiobook had an annoying way of over-enunciating. Plus she emphasized minor words in sentences, like propositions. (“He navigated THROUGH mirrored hallways”; “AFTER arriving IN New York . . .,” etc.). She made a faint attempt at the accent of an Irish character but none with any of the Russians. I am going to avoid this narrator in the future.

I didn’t realize, when I started the book, that it was the middle volume in a series. But it read well as a stand-alone. I looked through my Kindle library and saw I had the first book in the series on hand, so I’ll look into that one some time.