The love affair of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, and his wife, Alexandra, a granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria, is a tale of searing passion and inescapable tragedy. Just how deep the passion, how intimate the relationship, and how tragic the end only now becomes clear with the release of their letters to one another, the majority of which are published here for the first time.

A Lifelong Passion draws heavily on the hitherto private correspondence of the last Tsar and Tsarina, and their passionate yearning for one another is heartbreakingly evident on every page.

Through selections from the letters and diaries of their friends and contemporaries, we also meet the five Romanov children and their wily Swiss tutor; various royal relatives such as Queen Victoria and Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm; and several important members of the Russian court, including the duke who participated in the murder of Rasputin and describes it here in bloodcurdling detail.

Tender love and bloody murder, imperial pomp and desperate intrigue all play their part in this harrowingly intimate account of the lives of Nicholas and Alexandra.