Wanda, Vol. 1 (of 3)

Set against the vast, windswept plains of rural Russia and the refined drawing rooms of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ouida's Wanda opens with two figures adrift in grief. Countess Wanda von Szalras has withdrawn from the world following her brother's accidental death, but the Empress herself commands her return to society. In a remote village, Prince Paul Zabaroff discovers he owns a crumbling manor he never knew existed, and an estranged son, Vassia, raised in ignorance of his noble blood by a peasant woman named Maritza. As these two narratives converge, Ouida explores what remains when titles crumble and grief refuses to conform to social expectation. This is Volume One of a trilogy that maps the collision between old world nobility and the inexorable forward march of time.