RuslanBarbara ScrupskiThree Rivers PressDecember 18, 2007Part Gone with the Wind, part Doctor Zhivago, and thoroughly captivating, Ruslan is the epic story of a destitute young countess in Tsarist Russia who tries every avenue to restore her fortunes.In glittering St. Petersburg, we meet Countess Alexandra Korvin: beautiful and intelligent, but also unmarried and—thanks to her late spendthrift father—quite penniless. In her polarized society of aristocratic grandeur and crushing poverty, a woman's only option is to marry well.Alexandra makes her way through St. Petersburg society, attending dazzling balls, lavish dinners, and operas in search of a spouse. She pursues the charming but unattainable politician Rybynsky and spurns the advances of Ulynov, a rakish army captain who falls desperately in love with her. Finally, craving freedom and rebelling against the confines of her life as a woman, she cuts off her hair and joins the army as a man—only to find the ultimate test of her feminine heart.Rich with decadent trappings of Tsarist splendor and alive with the indomitable spirit of an unforgettable young woman, Ruslan is a novel to savor from first page to last.From the Hardcover edition. About the AuthorBARBARA SCRUPSKI teaches English at a community college near Annapolis, Maryland. She received her M.F.A. at Columbia University, and also studied extensively at the University of Konstanz in Germany, Cambridge University, and the Polish Language Institute in Krakow. This is her first novel.From the Hardcover edition.About IcebergThe Iceberg Reader revolutionizes the reading experience, making it easier than ever to browse, buy and enjoy books.Features- Attractive interface provides a natural reading experience with full pagination.- Table of Contents incorporates one click navigation.- Vertical and horizontal page orientation.- Adjust font size with a pinch, text reflows automatically.- Search the text within a book.- Create margin notes with user notation.About Crown Publishing GroupRandom House, Inc., the world's largest English-language trade book publisher, publishes many of the foremost & most popular fiction & nonfiction authors in hardcover, trade & mass market paperback, audio, electronic, digital & other formats. Random House, Inc. (www.randomhouse.com) is the U.S. division of Random House, the book division of Bertelsmann AG, one of the world's leading media companies. Random House, Inc. has won the most major awards of any publishing company, including the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, & the Newbery Medal. Among the dozens of Random House, Inc. publishing divisions & imprints in the U.S. are the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, the Crown Publishing Group, the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, the Knopf Publishing Group, Fodor's Travel Guides, Random House Children's Books, the Random House Publishing Group, & the Random House Audio Publishing Group. Random House's publishing companies in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, & Korea are publishing leaders in their territories.About ScrollmotionScrollMotion, creator of the Iceberg Reader, is a content technology company based in downtown New York City. For more information, visit www.scrollmotion.com.SupportIf you have any technical problems please email us at icebergsupport@scrollmotion.com before you post a review.
