Mary Staples

A thrilling, romantic adventure from the bestselling author of the Adams family sagas.1925, a damp wintry night in Berlin. Englishman Philip Gibson, in Germany to seek the answers to a tantalizing mystery surrounding the Grand Duchess Anastasia, witnesses an attack on Natasha, a young woman who has fled from Russia. When Philip takes the fragile Natasha in to help her recuperate, he finds himself at the heart of another mystery.

An impetuous decision to marry has left the young Lady Caroline widowed and with two estates in her name. She is now in a position to live her life to the full, socialising with London's finest aristocracy, but her unhappy experience has put her off marrying again. Her younger sister, Annabelle, on the other hand, is falling in love with a man who is notoriously unfaithful. But Annabelle refuses to believe it, so Caroline knows she must intervene before she sees her sister fall victim to the same miserable fate she experienced. And so she hires the charming Captain Burnside, a retired British Army officer, to distract her. An adventurer who is both charming and witty, he seems the perfect man to tear Annabelle away from her infatuation. But things don't go quite according to Caroline's plan.

It is 1953 - Coronation year - and like all of Cockney London the members of the Adams family are looking forward to the celebrations. Chinese Lady, now Lady Finch, worries that her friends will think she is too grand to mingle with them. But her husband has a more pressing worry - the sudden appearance of the lovely but mysterious Katje Galicia, who knows more than she should about his own chequered past. Young Jimmy Adams, meanwhile, is enjoying working at the family clothing factory, where at the retirement party for two of the oldest employees, Bert and Gertie Roper, he meets their lively granddaughter Clare. Before long he has offered her a job on the switchboard, and has hopes of seeing her after working hours as well. And brave Felicity, blinded in the blitz, thinks she notices a glimmer of light appearing in her dark world - but dare not tell her husband, in case it is just her imagination...With the young Queen now on the throne, times are changing for the Adams family.