Princess Napraxine, Volume 2 (of 3)

Princess Nadine Napraxine moves through her morning with the energy of someone who has never accepted the quiet life. Her husband, the Prince, maintains his aristocratic calm while guests orbit their world. But Nadine harbors secrets: memories of encounters with the mysterious Othmar that hint at a passion she cannot speak aloud. Around her orbits Yseulte, a young woman whose own fate mirrors Nadine's choices: marriage or the cloister, ambition or devotion. This is a novel about the cages society builds and the hearts that beat against them. Ouida wrote with ferocious intelligence about women who understood that love and freedom were often incompatible demands. The stakes here are not merely romantic but existential: can a woman truly choose herself in a world that demands she choose others? Those who admire Henry James, George Eliot, or the great Victorian novels of ideas will find in Ouida a writer who pulses with the same urgent intelligence.