NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The million-copy bestseller Lilac
Girls introduced the real-life heroine Caroline Ferriday. Now Lost
Roses, set a generation earlier and also inspired by true events,
features Caroline's mother, Eliza, and follows three equally indomitable
women from St. Petersburg to Paris under the shadow of World War I.
**"Not only a brilliant historical tale, but a love song to all the ways
our friendships carry us through the worst of times."--Lisa Wingate,
#1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours
It is 1914, and the world has been on the brink of war so often, many
New Yorkers treat the subject with only passing interest. Eliza Ferriday
is thrilled to be traveling to St. Petersburg with Sofya Streshnayva, a
cousin of the Romanovs. The two met years ago one summer in Paris and
became close confidantes. Now Eliza embarks on the trip of a lifetime,
home with Sofya to see the splendors of Russia: the church with the
interior covered in jeweled mosaics, the Rembrandts at the tsar's Winter
Palace, the famous ballet.
But when Austria declares war on Serbia and Russia's imperial dynasty
begins to fall, Eliza escapes back to America, while Sofya and her
family flee to their country estate. In need of domestic help, they hire
the local fortune-teller's daughter, Varinka, unknowingly bringing
intense danger into their household.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Eliza is doing her part to help the
White Russian families find safety as they escape the revolution. But
when Sofya's letters suddenly stop coming, she fears the worst for her
best friend.
From the turbulent streets of St. Petersburg and aristocratic
countryside estates to the avenues of Paris where a society of fallen
Russian émigrés live to the mansions of Long Island, the lives of Eliza,
Sofya, and Varinka will intersect in profound ways. In her newest
powerful tale told through female-driven perspectives, Martha Hall Kelly
celebrates the unbreakable bonds of women's friendship, especially
during the darkest days of history.
