A.S. was right. Pushkin - Russian history is full of plots and passions that even Shakespeare could not dream of. What is worth at least the miracle of the incredible rise of Martha Skavronskaya, a poor orphan, a commoner, the widow of a Swedish dragoon, who became the wife of Peter the Great and the All-Russian Empress Catherine the First! From a soldier's tent to the bed of Field Marshal Sheremetev, then to the bedroom of His Serene Highness Prince Menshikov and, finally, to the royal bedchamber - and all this in just a year! Where is Anne Boleyn or the Marquise of Pompadour! And let envious people gossip about the “queen of the soldiers’ spoils” - Catherine had enough intelligence and feminine strength to become not just a concubine, not even a favorite, but a crowned Empress and not only keep her head on her shoulders, but inherit the throne after the death of her husband. Do you want to know the secret of her attractiveness, how she bewitched Peter the Great and whether she had a hand in his untimely death? Read this exciting novel!