Alex Faversham dreams of rebellion and longs to break away from her comfortable background. And so a chance visit from her aunt fires her determination to escape. At the age of nineteen Alex sets out to find the exciting destiny she yearns for in Italy.

Italy is enchanting, but as she watches the dancers in hotel ballrooms she feels something missing from her life. When her employer decides to return home, Alex sets out for Vienna - home of the waltz. The heady glitter of imperial Vienna in the years before the First World War is as alluring as Alex had dreamed. Here she finds romance with Karl von Winkler, a hussar in the Emperor's guard. But like the Hapsburg Empire their love cannot last and as she finds herself away from home on the brink of war, will Alex ever see England or her family again . . .?

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