Prepare to be swept off your feet by Du Beke's second romantic and
irresistible novel of 1930s London
'Welcome to the Grand Ballroom of the Buckingham Hotel, a place of
music and magic, of magnificence and splendor. Strung high with
decorations for the Christmas festivities, today it is banked in a dozen
miniature Norwegian firs, all of them bedecked in crystals and lights -
while, gathered around its chequered dance floor, gather the great and
good of London town. There is nowhere else, no other dazzling palace or
mansion in Mayfair, that the finest members of Society would rather
be.'
London, 1937. With a new king in place, tensions are rising in London
and across Europe. Shaken by the Great Depression and with talk of
another war coming, the Buckingham Hotel is trying to regain some
stability. Upstairs, Vivienne Edgerton is desperate to do something
worthwhile with her time and her stepfather's money, rather than
spending it on frivolity and debauchery - but will this land her in even
more trouble? And downstairs, chambermaid Nancy Nettleton is finally
starting to feel more settled at the Buckingham, and hopes her brother
will soon call London home, too. But she misses the man she loves,
demonstration dancer Raymond de Guise, who is noticeably absent from the
Grand Ballroom dance floor. The staff and guests of the Buckingham soon
discover that in a hotel full of secrets, there's always someone
listening.
