Blood Red, Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick

The final part, 'A Fairy Tale, Ending', focuses on Ransome's private life, shifting into first person narration. He finally decides that he has no business interfering with the destiny of Russia, one way or the other, and leaves Moscow for Stockholm. On the other hand he is appalled by the brutality of some revolutionaries and considers helping his friend Robert Lockhart of the British Embassy. He has experienced the pull of Bolshevik idealism and has fallen in love with Trotsky's secretary, Evgenia. They appear as a scatter of flashbacks, reflecting the confusion in his mind. In the second part of the novel, 'One Night in Moscow', Ransome is haunted by the scenes he has witnessed. With the start of the First World War, he stays to observe events, becoming a correspondent for The Daily News. The English writer Arthur Ransome leaves his wife and daughter in London and travels to Russia to collect folktales. The novel continues by presenting history from the perspective of an individual, an outsider. It is a fairy-tale account of the circumstances leading to the Russian Revolution, featuring the poor woodcutter, the orphaned children, the romantic but oblivious Royal family, the mad monk, the sleeping bear and the two conspirators in the wood. The first part, 'A Russian Fairy Tale', deliberately evokes the atmosphere of Arthur Ransome's Old Peter's Russian Tales. He also has close contact with people working for the British government and must decide where his loyalties lie. He becomes acquainted with the leading Bolsheviks and begins a romance with Trotsky's secretary Evgenia who will become his second wife. The novel describes the origins and events of the Russian Revolution, interwoven with the experiences of Arthur Ransome, then a journalist in Russia. It was shortlisted for the 2007 Costa Children's Book Award.

It is a novel set during the Russian Revolution, a fictionalised account of the time the author Arthur Ransome spent in Russia. Blood Red, Snow White is a historical novel by Marcus Sedgwick published in 2007.

Blood Red, Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick