“Intriguing ... This gripping novel sets the tone of one of the worst wars of our time.” — Holly Newton, Meridian Magazine

In December 1913, the city of Vienna glitters with promises of the future for sought-after debutante Amalia Faulhaber. But life takes a dramatic turn when simmering political unrest escalates into the most deadly war the world has ever known. Amalia is devastated when her fiance, Baron Eberhard von Waldburg, breaks off their engagement to return to his native Germany and obligatory military service. But she soon discovers that her passion for democracy in an increasingly fascist world has put everything she loves in danger. Her family torn apart and impoverished by the war, Amalia must now choose between an idealistic young Polish doctor, who shares her political views, and the wealthy Baron von Schoenenburg, an Austrian Cabinet minister who promises to provide safety and security in a violent, tumultuous time. Reminiscent of Gone with the Wind, this epic novel explores the nature of human character and the elusive search for love and peace.

Traveling across the vast imperial courtyard of the Hapsburg Palace, Amalia appeared as a
mere speck of green against the snow. The matronly edifice, surrounded by cream
pastry monuments, rose as a fantasy out of the white. From here an unbroken
line of Hapsburg emperors had ruled over central Europe for half a millennium.
This fact was there, buried deep in whatever consciousness of self the
nineteen-year-old Amalia Faulhaber had, telling her much more
than she realized about who she was—a Viennese.

Eberhard thought these thoughts, striding
impatiently before this aged grandeur as he awaited his fiancée. When she
arrived and he handed her down from the carriage, he had the familiar sensation
of possessing a long-stemmed lily—graceful, fragrant,
and pure.

“This is rather melodramatic, darling,”
Amalia said. Her mahogany red coiffure was capped by a perky feathered hat,
hardly suited for the impending blizzard. “A note to meet you alone! I hope you
know I had to lie to Mama.”

“Let’s walk,” he suggested curtly. Head and
shoulders above his fiancée, who was tall for a woman, he barely tamed his
stride to accommodate hers. She appeared to be a typical young socialite in her
loden cape, but to him, she was anything but typical. Somehow, in her artless
way, she had ensnared a heart that belonged to another life, another
world.

Now, instead of speaking, Eberhard studied
the snow-darkened horizon that was capped by the ornate roofs of the
courtyard buildings, green with age. How could he begin? He must shake off this
feeling of being small. This place of doomed decadence had no hold over him. He
belonged in the fast-paced Protestant streets of Berlin, where men
strode instead of strolling. But there was Amalia . . .

“What’s wrong, Eberhard?”

“We’re going to have another blizzard,” he
said, without looking at her. “We’d better get this over with and return you to
your home.”

“That sounds rather ominous.” She drew a
little apart. Capturing her arm, he held her to him and guided her down a pair
of steps. He was taut all over at the contact.

“Come, tell me what this is about. Why
couldn’t you call at the house in the normal way?”

“Someone is always hovering. I needed to
talk to you alone, and I didn’t want you flying off before I’d finished
speaking to you.”

“It’s bad, then?”

“I’m afraid it is.” He gazed into her face
for the first time.

Amalia withdrew her hand from his arm,
raised her chin, and looked him straight in the eye. Eberhard was the first to
avert his gaze, running his fingers through his hair. Best to get it over with.
“Amalia, I have to leave Vienna.”

“Your mother . . . ?” she
began.

Cutting her off with a raised hand, he
added, “Mother’s fine. It’s just that I’m afraid it will be impossible for me
to marry you.”

Obviously stunned, she raised a gloved hand
to her mouth. He read the thoughts in her transparent countenance—He can’t possibly be
serious! We are engaged! The notice has been published in the newspapers! I am
being fitted for my wedding gown! What madness is this?

He was instantly repentant, grasping her
hands and squeezing hard. He had to make her understand. “I’ve decided I must
go back to Berlin to enlist in the army.”

She breathed again, and the tension went
out of her. “Is that all?” Her lapis blue eyes chastened him. “Then there’s
nothing really wrong.”

“I don’t think you understand, Amalia.”

“Eberhard, you’re making this far too
difficult. Soldiers aren’t monks.”

He felt the lines of his face soften as he
looked down at her. Despite her sophisticated air, the milkiness of her skin
was that of a child. Her innocence was always refreshing to his spirit in this
overblown, world-weary place. “No, of course they’re not. But there’s
going to be a war, you know.” He turned his face away. “I may be killed.”

“Of course you won’t be killed,” she said.
“If there were a war, which I doubt, it would only be a short skirmish with
those devilish Serbs. Germany wouldn’t even be involved!” She had recovered her
equilibrium now, reminding him that she was the great-granddaughter
of a count.

In exasperation, he dropped her hands. They
began to walk again.

“There’s going to be a blowup, Amalia,” he
insisted. “This situation can’t continue much longer. Russia is Serbia’s ally.
If she fights, then Germany’s bound to. France, too, for that matter.”

“Wolf says Russia won’t fight over some
silly disagreement in the Balkans.”

They had had this discussion many times.
“Your brother is entitled to his opinion, but that doesn’t change the fact that
Austria needs to settle things permanently in that part of the Empire. It’s a
tinderbox. A haven for anarchy. It could ignite all Europe. That’s the Kaiser’s
assessment, and I agree with him.” Wresting his gaze from hers, he stared at
the horizon and imagined himself in the ceremonial uniform of a Prussian
officer with its gold epaulettes, red lapels, and shiny top boots. Memories of
his father coming home from the Officer’s Club in just such a uniform were as
much a part of his childhood as horseback riding, shooting, and . . .
violin sonatas.

“But, Eberhard, what does your Kaiser have
to do with our getting married?”

“Amalia!” She wouldn’t see. “Don’t you ever
look beyond yourself? No. Of course not. How could you? You’re a part of this
doomed madness.” A sweeping gesture took in the overly ornamented buildings of
the Hofburgplatz.
“It’s finished, Amalia, or soon will be. You’ve got to realize that.
You’re in moral bankruptcy and decay, hanging on by a fraying thread of
tradition. Your emperor is a tired old man, living in the last century. His
heir committed murder and suicide, for heaven’s sake. Everyone who is anyone in
Vienna commits suicide!”

“I don’t know a soul who has committed
suicide!”

Ignoring her, he proceeded with the speech
he had prepared. “Your only prayer is Germany. Our emperor is young, full of
fresh ideas. Strength and vision!”

She stood still, studying his face.
“Sometimes I think you’re quite mad, Eberhard.” He heard echoes of her
grandmother’s hauteur. “You’re so passionate about all these things another
person can’t begin to understand.”

“And sometimes, Amalia, you’re too Viennese
for words.”

“Then why on earth do you want to marry
me?” she challenged.

“Heaven only knows,” he said, the fight
going out of him. His heart softened as it did when he lost himself playing his
violin. In moments such as these, she sneaked into his breast, bringing her
multicolored vitality. It almost blinded him. He had to remind himself that the
world was black and white.

“I’ve got to get away,” he said, shaking
his head to rid it of her spell. “I should have left weeks ago, but I kept
finding excuses to stay.”

Amalia stopped. “You make me sound like
some impediment to your duty.”

A vision, which he had experienced many
times—Amalia walking towards him down the aisle of St.
Stephen’s Cathedral, all trembling and white in her
purity—visited him now and wouldn’t leave. “Do you think I feel
nothing? Can’t you see how difficult this is for me?” he demanded harshly.

Shocked into silence, she averted her gaze.
Her body suddenly lost its rigidity, and she stumbled to a nearby bench to sit
down.

“It’s not a good time to be in love,
Amalia. I’m sorry.”

“So we are expected to turn our feelings
off,” she said, her voice low. “How can you, Eberhard?”

The grandeur around him faded to winter
bleakness, and he just managed to cling to the vision of himself in his
uniform. “I’m setting you free, Amalia. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“You won’t even ask me to wait?”

“You weren’t made for waiting, my dear.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I wouldn’t ask it of you. I think once
I’ve gone you’ll even come to realize you don’t actually love me, Amalia.” This
realization was sudden and came, unwanted, from the deepest part of him.

It stupefied her completely. “How can you
mean that?”

“You have never felt for me what I feel for
you,” he murmured gently, knowing it to be true. He was her mother’s catch. A
baron. Amalia was too young and inexperienced to feel the agony that was making
him tremble.

“Tell me what I’ve done,” she pleaded.
“Where have I fallen short?”

Leaning forward, he kissed her forehead.
“Someday you will know what it is to love with body and soul.”

Her brow furrowed. Flushing, Amalia looked
away.

“There are some things that are too big for
us, Amalia,” he said, his voice suddenly hard as he averted his face. “I have
known all my life that I was born to be an officer in the Prussian army. It is
simply who I am.” He paced two steps away. “Vienna was an experiment I
undertook to please my mother. But it is not my destiny to be a dilettante
violinist. Nor to marry the Fairy Queen.”

She looked up at him, her eyes large and
surprisingly angry. “I’m not the Fairy Queen! You’re talking like a romantic,
Eberhard. You don’t even sound like yourself.”

He turned his back on her. The move was
deliberate, calculated. He couldn’t allow her to see inside him to that
insecure place he didn’t control—the place where the violinist
dwelt, where he actually feared for his life, and where he loved her so much that
his resolution was nearly gone.

Throwing off these thoughts, he assumed the
stance of a soldier while he still could. Innocent she might be, but Amalia
Faulhaber was part of this dying city that was threatening to pull him down in
its death throes. To fight with the Prussian army was his destiny.

“There isn’t anything I can do to make you
change your mind?” she asked.

Merely shaking his head, he kept his back
to her.

“Eberhard, this is a mistake.”

“I’m a soldier, Amalia. That’s all I ever
was. I’m sorry if for a little while I forgot the fact.”

“Yes, it is a pity.” He heard the sarcasm
in her words and could visualize Amalia drawing herself up. Hers was not a
character to be crushed by rejection.

“Well, if you must go, do it now,” she
challenged him.

He looked over his shoulder, studying her
one last time, as she sat there in green, tiny against the immense landscape.
Then he turned and walked away without looking back. He knew if he did, he
would never go.