Author:Danielle Steel
The conflict between the old world and the new...between responsibility and freedom...between duty and love...
Princess Christianna, happier in jeans and a sweatshirt than in the formal life of European royalty, leaves university to travel to East Africa as a volunteer for the Red Cross. Determined to make a difference, she plunges into the dusty, bustling life of an international relief camp, and is anxious to keep her identity a secret from her fellow aid workers.
Dr Parker Williams, who works alongside Christianna and shares her dedication to healing, has no idea who she is - but as violence approaches and invades the camp, and the pressures of her royal life beckon her home, her struggle for freedom takes an extraordinary turn.
By a simple twist of fate, in one shocking moment, Christianna's life is changed for ever - in ways she could never have foreseen.
A skilful Steel pricks at all our senses
—— Sunday ExpressPretty damn gripping, and fans of weepie novels will adore the touching love-story element. Totally addictive
—— HEATTremendous, compassionate, exuberant
—— IndependentThe reader feels there really is something at stake - birth, love, death, war, loyalty
—— GuardianTremendousm compassionate, exuberant
—— Michael Bywater , IndependentWonderful rites-of-passage novel... where the author's blossoming Sapphic nature leads her to eschew her mothers proffered favourite
—— Mariella FrostrupIt is very funny, with an Alan Bennett sort of humour, beautifully written, quirky and likely to cause much tuttutting in conservative quarters
—— Daily MailThis lesbian coming of age story set in northern England doesn't seem to have aged a bit
—— IndependentAn instant classic
—— Rosemary Goring , HeraldYou'll find everything you need to know about mustering the courage to embrace your true self and live life without fear in Winterson's hugely engaging semi-autobiographical novel
—— Mariella Frostrup , Sunday Times