Before you are two historical novels by the wonderful Russian writer Valerian Yakovlevich Svetlov (1860–1934). In the most fascinating work “from the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich” “At the Court of the Quietest” V. Ya. Svetlov managed to see history in a new way, it is so interesting to recreate the life of people of that time, with their joys and sorrows, experiences and thoughts, that the whole era appears before the readers as if it was previously unknown to him. Several generations peered in the Kunstkamera at the facial features of a woman whose head was preserved for viewing for such an ungodly long time, and We would be interested to see how the writer presented the life of this criminally famous maid of honor of Peter the Great’s time in the novel “The Adventuress.”