"Here's an intriguing and credible historical novel about three real and unusual people: Empress Elizabeth of Austria, spectacularly beautiful in a Vivien Leigh sort of way, restless and dissatisfied, very much the Princess Diana of the 19th century, the finest horsewoman in Europe, unhappily married to Emperor Franz Joseph; 'Captain 'Bay' Middleton, himself a renowned rider and hunter, handsome and dashing, a notorious ladies' man, but impecunious; and the third corner of this triangle, his fiancee Charlotte Baird, not a great beauty but spirited, intelligent, and talented, a woman with surprising depths—and heiress to a fortune. . . This is a good light read made all the better for being so closely based on fact."
Publisher St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date 2015-03-31
Section Fiction / All Staff Suggestions / Fiction Suggestions / Alan H.
Format Paperback
ISBN 9781250043900
Empress Elizabeth of Austria, known as Sisi, is the Princess Diana of nineteenth-century Europe. Famously beautiful, as captured in a portrait with diamond stars in her hair, she is unfulfilled in her marriage to the older Emperor Franz Joseph. Sisi has spent years evading the stifling formality of royal life on her private train or yacht or, whenever she can, on the back of a horse.
Captain Bay Middleton is dashing, young, and the finest horseman in England. He is also impoverished, with no hope of buying the horse needed to win the Grand National--until he meets Charlotte Baird. A clever, plainspoken heiress whose money gives her a choice among suitors, Charlotte falls in love with Bay, the first man to really notice her, for his vulnerability as well as his glamour. When Sisi joins the legendary hunt organized by Earl Spencer in England, Bay is asked to guide her on the treacherous course. Their shared passion for riding leads to an infatuation that jeopardizes the growing bond between Bay and Charlotte, and threatens all of their futures.
The Fortune Hunter, a brilliant new novel by Daisy Goodwin, is a lush, irresistible story of the public lives and private longings of grand historical figures.
